toffee, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

toffee n.

1. nonsense, flattery [? its ‘sweetness’].

1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Dec. 13/4: A N.S.W. R.C. college journal, dealing out toffee to its old boys (they are all, it seems, really good, and all get a stick) mentions one as having ‘commenced on the lower rung of the staff of one of the most influential papers of the city, and rose, step by step till he is now his chief’s most trusted lieutenant, and controls the whole paper.’.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 172: Is religion true, or have we all been bunged a load of toffee.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 205: Toffee Nonsense or flattery: ‘You don’t believe that load of toffee, do you?’, or ‘He’s full of the old toffee!’.
1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 92: Of a plausible, smooth, smarmy foreman it will be said by one of his underlings ‘’E gives me plen’y of toffee.’ Thus Toffee Taylor [...] was the name of one such dockland foreman.
1999		Guardian Weekend 5 June 38: An ill-scripted load of old toffee.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 157: Listen, lad, don’t you be giving myself no toffee— I was just doing your job for you.

2. tobacco [the colour].

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 1243: [...] 1932.

3. gelignite [the colour].

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1243: [...] since mid-1940s.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

toffee-nose (n.)

1. (orig. milit.) a snobbish or supercilious person.

1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 106: Nick and Dave [...] saying obvious things about pooves and toffee-noses.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 14: The toffee-nose slunk back to his desk.

2. constr. with the, superciliousness, snobbishness.

2013

K. Sampson Killing Pool 9: Just the tart we need to sort, now. She’s got a bad case of the toffee nose, that one.

toffee-nose(d) (adj.) (also toffee, toffy-nosed) [toff n. (2) + a nose fig. stuck in the air to avoid the noxious smells of everyday life]

snobbish, arrogant, thus of an environment, seen as oppressively class-ridden (see cite 1961).

1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 44: I wasn’t going to fuck about for those toffy-nosed buggers.
1941		Derby Dly Teleg. 22 Apr. 3/2: He described snobbish individuals as ‘toffee-nosed’ people.
1950		C. Harris Three-Ha’Pence to the Angel 226: ’Spect it’ll be a toffee-nosed affair.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 63: No sense acting big-headed and blurting out what the N.C.O.s used to reckon of their useless, toffee-nosed ekrebs of officers.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 39: [A] middle-aged jerk who lives with ‘Mummy’ in a toffee-nosed block of flats complete with mod. cons.
1966		P. Willmott Adolescent Boys of East London (1969) 94: You go to grammar school, you’re stuck up, toffee-nosed.
1977		(con. 1940s) O. Manning Danger Tree 86: He’s a toffee-nosed old bumbler.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 10: Algernon’s toffy-nosed cadences drifted in from the hall.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 73: She [i.e. a boat] was as sleek and toffy-nosed as the posjo flyer she’d been named after.
1986		R. Hewitt White Talk Black Talk 110: They don’t use words like ... like all those toffee words.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] There were a lot of toffee-nosed dickheads on our side.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 38: I’d probably be some toffee-nosed git.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 167: Every proud-arsed bullshitting bowler-hatted toffee-nosed publisher.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 122: None of this old school tie, toffy-nosed Liberal crap about him.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 68: The latty [i.e. a hostel] had been set up [...] by a grupa of toffee do-gooders as a sort of sanitarium or gaol.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 204: Oh, he could pigsniff a fancy stuck-up toffee-nose Milady Bountiful.

In phrases

for toffee (adv.) (also for love or toffee)

at all, in the slightest; usu. in negative phrs., often as can’t — for toffee, a phr. said of a particularly incompetent person where ‘it’ varies as to context.

1898		E.S. Mott Mingled Yarn 7: it was occasionally urged against me, at Sandhurst and elsewhere, that I could not ‘run for toffee’.
1899		Newcastle Courant 18 Nov. 5/2: Didn’t I help you last time when you couldn’t find a mate for love or toffee?
1909		Wodehouse Mike [ebook] ‘Old Bob can’t field for toffee [...] Dropped a sitter off me to-day’.
1910		Magnet 10 Sept. 10: He can’t play for toffee.
1920		Marvel 14 Aug. 6: Ha, ha! [...] The Yankee can’t fight for toffee!
1950		C. Harris Three-Ha’Pence to the Angel 105: Flo can’t dress for toffee.
1962		K. Waterhouse There is a Happy Land (1964) 135: You-ou can’t throw for toffee, man!
1975		(con. 1939) J. Rosenthal Evacuees Scene 5: Wolves can’t play for toffee.
1981		(con. c.1910) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 147: Greeny couldn’t thieve for toffee.
1997		(con. 1950s) J. Byrne Slab Boys [film script] 109: He couldnae kiss fur toffee.
2001		Guardian G2 5 Mar. 9: I went to Art School and I can’t paint for toffee.
2001		(con. late 1940s) V. Foot Sixteen Shillings And Tuppence Ha’penny 68: Yer can’t add up for toffee nuts.