Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a fool, the victim of a confidence trick.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Tom conney, a very silly fellow.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.

an equivocator, a cheat, a ‘double-dealer’.

1705

‘Character of a Sneaker’ in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 355: He is for a single ministry, that he may play the Tom-double under it.

a fop, a dandy.

1699

N. Ward London Spy IX 203: A very Gaudy crowd of Odiferous Tom-Essences.

a fool.

1678		‘Poor Robin’ True Character of a Scold 5: She [...] has either quite forgot his Name, or else she likes it not; which makes her Rebaptize him with more noble Titles, as White-liver’d Raskal, Drunken sot, Sneaking Ninkompoop, or pitiful lowsy Tom Farthing.
c.1720		‘State and Ambition’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) III 229: Jove in his Throne was a Fumbler Tom Farthing.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

a bore, a teller of long and tedious stories with neither end nor point.

1627		J. Taylor ‘An Armado’ in Works (1869) I 80: Lawrence Delay the Paymaster; kinsman to Tom Long the Carrier.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 49: In hast thou throng’d to be a Warrior, / But thou’t return with Long the carrier.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Come by Tom Long the Carrier, of what is very late, or long a coming.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Tom long, A tiresome story teller. It is coming by Tom Long, the carrier; said of any thing that has been long expected.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

a liar.

1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 685: Tom Pepper. A term for a liar.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 118: Of course he was a bigger liar than Tom Pepper but we did’nt count that.
1962		F. Norman in Police and the Public in Norman’s London (1969) 138: Some coppers are bigger liars than Tom Pepper — and he’s hot.
1977		G.F. Newman A Prisoner’s Tale 31: Lynn accepted that all screws were Tom Peppers, and told whatever lies suited them.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 106: Clews had made it blindingly obvious that he considered me to be a bigger liar than Tom Pepper.

an honest man.

1639		J. Clarke Paraemiologia 30: Tom tell troth [...] An open man.
1661		Antidote Against Melancholy in Ebsworth Choyce Drollery (1876) 119: Tom tell-troth lies hid in a pot of good ale.
1706		Farquhar Recruiting Officer IV iii: There are several sorts of Toms! Tom o’ Lincoln, Tom-tit, Tom Tell-troth, Tom o’ Bedlam, and Tom Fool.
[1738		Swift Polite Conversation 88: You know I am an old Tell-truth, I love to call a Spade a Spade].
1741		Ipswich Jrnl 9 May 4/2: A Plain Dialogue betwen Sir Cortly Jobber, Candidate for the Borough of Guzzledom, and tom tell-Truth, Schoolmaster.
1764		Bath Chron. 5 Jan. 2/2: Forbear, fond Fool, forbear to prate / Nor dare foretel your Neighbour’s Fat / [...] Tom Telltruth .
1775		Chester Chron. 30 Oct. 4/2: To Mr Tom Tell-Truth, Sir, I thank you for the caution, and will write no more novels. Yours &c.
1815		Oxford Jrnl 23 Sept. 3/5: The truth of my Narratuve, as relation to Sir tunbelly humbug, the Goosecaps, and all other [...] was as wilful as it was malicious. Tom Telltruth.
1890		Birmingham Dly Post 14 Nov. 7/5: Is he Tom Telltruth, and totally unable to disguise his real feelings?
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

1. an ordinary man, ‘Mr Average’.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. a henpecked husband.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

see tommy tit n.

(Irish) a small cheeky boy.

1992

R. Park Fence Around the Cuckoo 90: A fladdy-faced spalpeen, I was called, and a tom todger, and a bold little crab.

a ferryman, a waterman.

1794		Sporting Mag. Aug. IV 279/1: The lawyer began to revile the waterman, and told him he was an imposing rascal to ask two shillings [...] It was in vain that Tom Tug appealled to the generosity of Trickum, who paid his shilling, and the pair was landed.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 259: TOM TOPPER [...] TOM TUG, a waterman.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

a nightsoil cleaner; thus tom turdman’s fields, tom turdman’s hole, the dump where the nightsoil is deposited.

1663		Man in the Moon 5 May 12: Mr Tom Turds pond, which is to be called the Excremental Theatre.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 295: Do you call this a wedding? By St. Bridget’s tooth, I had rather be at that of a Tom T--dman.
1699		A great & famous scoldling-match 3: [L]aid on a heap of Dung on Tower-hill, with a Pocky Tom Turd-man a playing on my Dulcimer.
c.1700		London-Bawd (1705) 156: All the difference he knew between a Bawd and a Procurer, was only such as was between a common Tom-Turd-Man, and a Person of Qualities House-Maid, who Emptied Close-Stools.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 22: Let honour still be due to Jason’s Knights, Tho’ Tom-Turds-Arms the Golden Fleece beshites .
1718		Defoe ‘Against the Authors of Indecent Books’ in Uncoll. Works (1869) II 36: All Booksellers who sell stinking Books, such as Blasphemous, Bawdy, Lying, Treasonable Books, should like the T—men be obliged to open Shop only by Night .
1722		‘Whipping-Tom’ Foppish Mode of Taking Snuff I 9: A Man not acquainted with the Mode, would swear they were all Gold-finders or to speak more intelligibly, [...] Tom T---d Men.
1731		Proc. Old Bailey 13 Oct. 13/2: Thomas Morey depos’d [...] that going cross the Tom-Turd-Field , a Man stood, seeming to be making Water.
1733		Proc. Old Bailey 5 Dec. 10/2: The Child was wrapt up in an old Curtain, and laid in among some Horse-litter in Tom Turd’s-Hole (a Place where the Nightmen lay their Soil).
1744		Dyche & Pardon New General Eng. Dict. (4th edn) n.p.: Gold-Finder. A genteel name for him whose business it is to empty privies, vulgarly called a Tom-turd-man.
1750		Love at First Sight : At Mr. Timothy Smarvey’s new open Amphitheatre, between Tomturdman’s Fields and Whitechapel Mount [...] a Trial of Skill in the Boxing Way, vulgarly called Bruising, between the famous Championesses, Moll Brindle and Bess Sturdy.
1754		in Sadler ‘Song 126’ Muses Delight 278/1: Tom-T—dman and doctor both live by purgation.
1763		Proc. Old Bailey 14 Sept. 5/2: I was met by three men between 9 and 10 o'clock, about eight or nine yards from a place called Tom-turd-man’s-hole .
1771		Proc. Old Bailey 11 Sept. 483/2: It was at Tom Turdman ’s hole, near Stepney, in the fields.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1792		Nimble and Quick 4: It would puzzle a philosopher to give the preference to a Chimney-sweeper or a Tom-turdman, they are both useful members of the community.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Laystall [...] where the old gold, collected at weddings by the Tom t–d-man, is stored.
1840		‘May Day Morning’ in Capt. Morris’s Songs in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 221: There was Carrots and bandy-ass jack, / [...] / My Lord, and the little Tom Tirdman [sic].

(US) an outstanding example of something.

1954

J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 185: Anyone untrained in tom-wallagers might well have been startled at this tom-wallager.