Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a sword.

1596		Shakespeare King John IV iii: Put up thy sword betime: Or I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Toasting iron, or cheese toaster. A sword.
c.1790		‘De Kilmainham Minit’ in Luke Caffrey’s Gost 6: To save him I taut I could draw, / Me Toaster from out of de Scabbard.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 28: By Jove! you old fool, if you don’t throw down your toasting-fork, I’ll be the death of you!
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 216: I served in Spain with the king’s troops, until [...] I saw the game was over and hung up my toasting-iron.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 452: If I had given him time to get at his other pistol, or his toasting-fork, it was all up.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 284: Many a dusky Sikh had bitten the dust at the sweep of Jack’s regulation toasting fork .
1887		Birmingham Dly Post 7 Feb. 5/5: Jack [...] tried the ‘toasting forks,’ and found them as soft and worthless as old iron. The weapons [etc.].
1895		Whitstable Times 14 Dec. 2/1: I’d give a lot to see that herring-gutted thing spitted on the end of your toasting-fork.
1900		Boothby Maker of Nations ix n.p.: One of the officers drew his sword... ‘You can put up that toasting-fork,’ said Durrington, coolly [F&H].

2. a (large) knife.

1907

D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 20 July 12/3: ‘Tip us your flipper, put away yer toasting-iron [i.e. a bowie knife], and let’s be chums’.