Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a drink, esp. a thin or diluted one.

a.1635		Corbet ‘On John Dawson’ Poems in Chalmers V (1810) 132/1: Dawson the butler’s dead [...] So let your channels flow with single tiff, For John I hope is crown’d.
1661		A. Brome ‘The Answer’ Songs and Poems 165: Your next is money, which I promise, Full fifty pounds alas the summe is, That too shall quickly follow, if It can be rais’d from Strong or Tiffe.
c.1687		‘Mac O Bonniclabbero of Drogheda’ Bog Witticisms 48: We vill shing Curds and Crame by Chreest, and Buttar and Eggs, Bony-Clabber, and Tiff, untel de Coow shall have Cauf.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel II Bk V 668: Bacbuc asked us then, how we liked our tiff. We answered that it seemed to us good harmless sober Adam’s liquor.
1703		J. Philips Splendid Shilling (1719) 4: With scanty Offals, and small acid Tiff (Wretched Repast!).
1711		N. Ward Vulgus Britannicus X 109: So she that from the Brewhouse brings / Small Tiff in Tubs that hang on Sliings [sic].
1737		Pope Mother Gin 17: Poor miserable tiff, thick, small, and stale.
1870		Mercury (Hobart) 23 Apr. 2/5: [from the Stranraer Free Press] [...] a dram [...] a tift.

2. a small bowl (of liquor).

1727		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. II n.p.: Tiff, a small Quantity of potable Liquor, as a Tiff of Punch, etc.
1732		Proceedings at Sessions (City of London) July 158/2: I keep a Brandy-shop in Red-Lion-street [...] this Gentleman came into my shop, and drank a Dram a-piece, and then went and sate behind the Counter, and call’d for a Tiff of Punch.
1751		Fielding Amelia (1926) II 216: What say you to [...] a tiff of punch by way of whet?
1752		‘The Clerk’s Song’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 305: If you’ll give me t’other tift / I’ll give you t’other strain.
1773		‘Geoffrey Wildgoose’ Spiritual Quixote III Bk xi 231: Dr Slash, an elderly Surgeon [...]was smoaking his pipe over a tiff of punch.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1796		Sporting Mag. Mar. VII 300/1: After we had taken a tiff a-piece, we went to the Guildhall.
1797		‘T.B. Jr’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II i: When you return I’ll treat you with a chop and a tiff of punch.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1819		Sporting Mag. IV 272: The gentleman can’t take a tiff of beer in a morning .
1820		Blackwood’s Mag. VIII 98: We shall take a tiff of Campbell and Somerville’s best black strap .