tater n.
1. (also tatur) a potato; often in pl.; also attrib. [abbr.].
 | Poor Law/ Overseers Accounts, Great Barr, Staffs. n.p.: A bot o’ sheep’s jimmy with baked taerters and taernips. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Song Smith 100: Sing Pilliluh! Drimendo! whiskey and taters. | |
| Last Act in New British Theatre I iii: They calls him a common tatur, I believe; but hang me if I does’nt think he looks more like a kidney tatur, or a parsnip. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Brother Jonathan I 102: Taters and codfish! | |
| Cockney Adventures 9 Dec. 43: Joe Pitman, the tatur salesman, and his vife from Spitalfields. | |
| Crim.-Con. Gaz. 8 Dec. 123/3: [That] was the amendment of a bak’d tater man in the gallery. | |
| ‘Joe Buggins’ in Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 36: There was sassingers and bil’d cows’ livers, and taters in nice dripping fried. | |
| N.Y. Clipper 26 Nov. 3/4: The meal, usually composed of ‘taters, tough beef, and yaller turnips’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 Oct. 3/3: Such little innuedoes as [...] ‘how d’ye like yer taters done?’. | |
| Paved with Gold 280: Not a house good for a cold tater, that I can see. | |
| Seven Curses of London 101: We’ve got a jolly lot of beef and some baked taters at home. | |
| Gabriel Conroy I 17: Jess squashy with gravy and injins. And taters—baked. | |
| Dagonet Ballads 77: There ain’t no poetry in green-stuff — in ’taturs and inguns, and peas. | |
| Daily Tel. 6 Oct. 2: Mother, she works over in Tooley Street, at the tater-sack making. | |
| ‘Possum’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 82: He biled ’is taters soggy, an’ ’is junk was biled to rags. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 27 Nov. 133: Hold your mouth, you one-eyed old tater-grubber. | |
| [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Girl in the Khaki Dress 🎵 In the restaurant, to the waiter, / I say ’Bring me a khaki tater’. | |
| Boys Of The Empire 23 Apr. 35: He’s as big as a prize ’tater. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Jan. 4/7: Hereabouts are fish-and-tater shops, of that number quite a score. | |
| Sporting Times 1 Jan. 1/5: The coke-smoked caterer with the baked-tater can outside the ‘Bell and Horns.’. | |
| ‘Ballad of Hard Luck’ 4 Jan. [synd. col.] I’m dreamin’ o’ steak an’ taters. | |
| ‘Digger Smith’ in Chisholm (1951) 94: ’E ‘ad a fork out in the tater patch. / Sez ’e, ‘Why, ’ello, Digger. Got a match?’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 412: Fish and taters. | |
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 113: It were real nice beef, wi’ a bit o’ Yorkshire puddin’ an’ cauliflower and taters. | |
| Gilt Kid 199: He dived into a fish shop every now and then and came out with a tanner’s worth of rock salmon and taters. | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 12 Apr. 13: Shirley Allen is off the ‘trotters’ ’n’ tater salad for good. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 189: She’d eat buckets of fish and taters. | |
| (con. c.1935) London E1 (2012) 33: She just said ‘taters’ or ‘fish’ or whatever [...] she wanted. | |
| Killing Time 233: Twas the night after Christmas, and all through the cell, / Everyone was drinking tater water and was drunk as hell. | |
| Rivethead (1992) 78: For about five bucks you would receive a slim gray slab of cow-thing [and] a side of artificial tater goop. | |
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 tater n. potato. | |
| Donnybrook [ebook] ‘I beat you into a plate of mashed taters’. |
2. a hole in one’s sock [var. on potato n. (3)].
| ‘Bill Bounce’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 26: His stocking feet were coax’d and crush’d, / That the taters from their windows blush’d. | |
| ‘I Don’t Like to See’ Comic Songs 9: I don’t like to see [...] a girl with great Taters stuck out at her Heels. | |
| ‘The Wayback Family’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 13 Jan. 5/2: Delia, mend those stockings to once; folks don't want ter see er little gal running about with two new taters stickin’ out o’ her knees. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 1206/1: late C.19–20. |
3. (US) the penis.
| ‘Sandy Lan’ in Amer. Ballads and Folk Songs 237: Big yam taters in de sandy lan’, / Sandy bottom, sandy lan’. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 395: Big fat gals in sandy lane, / Big sweet ’taters in sandy lane. [Ibid.] 402: ‘I went down to Jenny’s place, At ten o’clock or later, / She give me some hog-eye meat, / An’ I give her a “’tater”.’ She heard the song near Ponca City, Oklahoma, before 1918. | |
| ‘Finnegan’s Waikiki’ in Love Without (2007) 140: A bum tater’s a bum tater. Believe me. They’ve done everything to my weenie but roast it on a stick. |
In compounds
a meal made up almost entirely of potatoes.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
the mouth.
| Lectures on Art of Writing (1840) 59: I’ve been obleeged [...] to stop the botheration of their tater traps, with a sort of parliamentary slang. | |
| ‘The Mill’ British Minstrelsy 110: There’s a wap on his tater-trap – he’s made his box o’ dominoes chatter. [...] Baker shows first claret and a graper – he’s taking measure of his eyes for a suit of mourning. | |
| ‘A Chaunt by Slapped-up Kate and Dubber Daff’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 47: Scent of oil’s too from her ’tatoe-trap. | |
| ‘The Mill’ Museum of Mirth 45/1: [as 1827]. | |
| Wkly Rake (NY) 3 Sept. n.p.: If he ain’t a darned Yankee, right up to snuff; / At playing on tater traps — touching a lug — /At mousing a peeper — or spoiling a mug . | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Apr. 2/4: Ike’s left reached the tater-trap slightly. | |
| Era (London) 6/36/2: Crockett [...] planted his left mawley with some effect on Branch’s tater-trap. | |
| Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: A precious christian stopping his tatar-trap (mouth) vith slippery (soap), and rolling himself about the pave like a prad (horse) in the bits. | |
| (con. 1838) Fights for the Championship 137: He succeeded in planting his left on Caunt’s ‘tater-trap’. | |
| Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 17 Oct. 3/6: Balloon [...] returned with his left three times on Harry’s tatur-trap and right ogle. | |
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Apr. n.p.: One fellow’s ‘nob’ was damaged [and] his ‘tater-trap’ mutilated. | |
| Paved with Gold 379: Tater-trap Sam, a big-mouthed burglar, joined the venture. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Chambers’s Journal xiii 348: His mouth is his ‘potatoe trap’ – more shortly, ‘tatur trap’ – or kisser [F&H]. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 June 4/3: So long as its proceedings are to be connected with the vulgar slang of ‘tater-traps,’ ‘mawleys,’ and ‘bread-baskets,’ it will be impossible for gentlemen to have anything to do with it [i.e. prize-fighting]. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 May 2/5: Abe [...] caught johnny on the ‘tater trap’. | |
| Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 237: It landed slap and sharp on Elias’ tater-trap. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Dec. 3/4: An unappreciative sailor [...] interrupted [...] by requesting him to close his ‘tater-trap’. | |
| Tag, Rag & Co. 187: Hah, Tom, my boy, you caught a nasty one on the tater-trap! | |
| Essex Standard 28 Dec. 6/3: He had turned sharply on his son and said ‘Shut yer tater-trap’. | |
| Marvel 15 May 14: Shoving gags into their tater-traps. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 4 June 1/1: An ornamented Perth barmaid is off with her most recent mash [...] while she was landing the flathead her shop teeth slithered into her swanky [and] she tugged the molars back to her tater-trap . | |
| Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 8 Dec. 12/3: ‘You can keep the blind down over yer blooming dial and needn’t open yer tater-trap’. | |
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 241/2: Tatur-trap (Irish, 19 cent.). The mouth ; tatur being short for potato. | |
| Aus. Felix (1971) 18: From the back of the hall came the curt request to him to shut his ‘tater-trap.’. |
In phrases
(orig. US) a phr. meaning slow down, show restraint.
| Wkly Advertiser (Montgomery, AL) 6 May 2/6: Never mind, just hold your tater awhile. | |
| Arkansas Valley Democrat (Arkansas City, AR) 5 Jan. 1/3: If you will just hold your ‘taters’ you will find outr who he is. | |
| Fort Scott Dly Monitor (KS) 8 Mar. 4/3: ‘So hold your ’tater and we shall see’. | |
| Messenger & Intelligencer (Wadesboro, NC) 21 Nov. 1/4: ‘Just hold your tater, Maw, an I’ll show you’. | |
| Tampa Trib. (FL) 19 June 6/6: ‘Now you must “hold your taters” while I tell you where to put all those vegetables’. | |
| ‘Folk “Sayings” From Indiana’ in AS XIV:4 265: ‘Hold your tater,’ and ‘Don’t get ahead of the hounds’ are cautions to the hasty or impatient person. | |
| Tree of Heaven 39: ‘Hold your tater,’ says Emory, flinging the sack from his shoulder [...] ‘hold your tater, Symanthia’. | |
| Down in the Holler 253: Just hold your ’tater now; I’m a-comin’ as quick as I can. | |
| Little World Apart 96: ‘Hold your ’tater, big shot,’ I advised him. ‘Maybe Whistle- pants has been drinkin'’. | |
| Indianapolis News 9 Mar. 32/2: Loretta [...] said, ‘Hold your ’taters, honey’. | |
| Jackson Sun (TN) 25 Aug. 2C/1: ‘Supper’s almost ready, hold your taters!’. | |
| Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY) 24 Feb. 29/1: ‘Hold your taters,’ Possum said. |
to beat someone up; to punish.
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Jan. 2/4: The pig het my greens and now I’ve cooked his tater and you’ll be hoff too Murphy if you want to save your bacon. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 2 Feb. 3/2: [...] sending the culprit to the Quarter Sessions, where in all probability Murphy's ‘taters will bc cooked’. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 8 Feb. 2/7: The two defendants had amused themselves by dogging his dogs and settling their taters. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Jan. 3/2: The P.M. proceeded to ‘cook the taters’ [...] of the defendant. This he did in a very summary way, by fining him £30 and costs . | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
In exclamations
(US) an excl. of affirmation.
| Clockmaker III 298: Hit or miss, right or wrong, tit or no tit, that’s the tatur! |