Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. clothing, harness, ‘domestic paraphernalia of any kind’ (Hotten).

1812		P. Hawker Diary (1893) I 26 Sept. 45: In spite of all coats, ‘toggerys and upper benjamins.’.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 136: That there man with the blue toggery tipp’d me a bit of blarney.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 50: They [...] also looked like gentlemen, although their toggery was sporting like.
c.1840		‘I’m One of the Chaps Wot Sings’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 16: Gets my toggery down the spout.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Dec. 3/3: He [did] calmly walk into the Herald Newspaper Office, and march off with all the loose toggery he could lay his hands on.
1845		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Nov. 99/3: Jackson [...] had returned with an elegant suit of toggery.
1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) II 159: I shall never be able to do nothink with this ’ere toggery on my shudders.
1857		Venus’ Miscellany (NY) 31 Jan. n.p.: Rachel Cohen, second daughter of an old toggery collector.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 54/2: My little Judy says she’s had a run o’ bad luck for sum tyme, and she was blyg’d to ‘lumber’ her best ‘toggery.’.
1870		D. Kirwan Palace & Hovel 69: My toggery was quite correct — my coat was Irish frieze.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 447: Semi-sailor toggery of blue navy flannel.
1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 1 Apr. 7/4: I’ve got a new concertina and a fresh suit of toggery.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 17/3: He had mortgaged everything of value to his commercial uncle, and his Sunday-going toggery had been grasped by the same avaricious hand.
1891		H. Lawson ‘The Ballad of Mabel Clare’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 168/1: He wore the latest toggery, / The loudest thing in ties.
1899		E.W. Hornung Amateur Cracksman (1992) 29: This cupboard’s full of all sorts of toggery.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 17 Nov. 101: If you knew the lingo, and could be rigged out in some of their toggery, you would easily pass for one.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 27: A cubbard made to fit one o’ the camels, with compartments for his swell toggery.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘From Each According to his Ability’ Voice of the City (1915) 228: Oh, about that toggery business – I’d forgotten that.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Aug. 22/2: Melbourne society scarcely runs to more than 2000, and society just swamped the place. The frocking was a farcical mixture. People have only their fur toggery just now, and the wind blew warm from the north.
1916		Day Book (Chicago) 3 July 20/1: Smart toggery for the bathing girl.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 8 Nov. [synd. col.] The decade opened with flappers worrying parents by checking their excess toggery at dances.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 492: Veda had worn the quiet, well-made, somewhat sexless toggery sanctioned by Pasadena, as suitable to girls of her age.

2. any variety of official or vocational dress.

1884		H. James Little Tour in France 150: Two of its members were gendarmes in full toggery.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 2 Mar. 360: Nicely got up in my ‘longshore toggery.’.
1917		N.Z. Observer 24 Nov. 4/1: He went into action wearing the full war toggery of a N.Z. chief.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 39: I hope the navy give us the better proposition as for a band the navy has better toggery.