Green’s Dictionary of Slang

of individuals and objects, classy, sophisticated, chic.

1779		Mme D’Arblay Diary and Letters (1904) I 218: A pretty, languid, tonnish young man. [Ibid.] 268: Mr R—, whose trite, settled, tonish emptiness of discourse is a never-failing source of laughter.
1784		Rambler’s Mag. Jan. 38/2: Hios lordship has mader some tender overtures to Mrs C—r, who [...] has greeduily accepted tghem and will accordingly figure away this winter as one of the tonish impures.
1787		R. Tyler Contrast II i: Their buckles so tonish and bright.
1793		Estate of Culross Coal Workings 53: It either is, or should be toneish, Scots Coals and Wax Tapers forming two of the indispensably necessary attendants of Drums, Routs, and Squeezes.
1800		Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 31/2: The tonish lad to town returns.
1819		Morn. Post (London) 9 Sept. 3/5: The Steyne promenade exhibited an elegant display of tonish pedestrians.
1822		D. Carey Life in Paris 77: Lady Halibut was conscious that it was exceedingly vulgar for a person of her quality not to be more tonish in her love of fashionable assemblies.
1832		Morn. Post (London) 6 Aug. 3/3: The Royal York continues pretty well crowded with ‘tonish’ guests.
1877		R. Burdette Rise and Fall of the Mustache 177: He’s a toney old cyclopedia on the patter, is old Fitchy.
1884		Sporting Times 8 Nov. 2/1: The Edgeware Road is not exactly a toney promenade.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 20/1: O, happy Maranzoni, / It was a gorgeous thing / When riding on your pony / To be looked at by a king, / Who was not too proud or toney / His evidence to bring.
1885		C.F. Lummis letter 10 Jan. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 231: The large one [blanket] [...] looks a deal tonier.
1887		M.D. Woodward Checkered Years (1937) 6 June 173: The new man, Nels Nelson, is quite tony wearing two gold rings, gold scarf pin, and gold neck button.
1891		H. Lawson ‘Corny Bill’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 114: The lazy, idle loafers wot / In toney houses camp, / Would call old Bill a drunken sot.
1900		Sporting Times 24 Mar. 2/2: In their midst — be still my palpitating cherry-tart — stood their instructress, a dear, tony little, wicked-eyed divinity.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 5/2: The police might devote some inquiries to the poker school which is said to exist on the premises of a certain toney club.
1906		Marvel 22 Dec. 638: That’s the worst of these ‘toney’ people.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 28: Isabel hastened to make an Alliance with one of the oldest and toniest Families.
1914		M. Glass Potash and Perlmutter 228: We ain’t so tony as all that.
1915		R.P. Hamilton diary 13 Jan. 🌐 Went in her car with Travers to hear H. Belloc at Reigate. In the stalls; very nice and ‘toney.’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 153: Theodore’s cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 135: References to Dickens, Victor Hugo, James Whitcomb Riley [...] and Michelangelo give to a sermon a very toney Chicago air.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 119: The girls who seek your company are not so tony, and their style not so spiffy.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 247: We always got to look toney. The toneyer we looks the more people buys our tips.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 73: He had neither wealth nor tony connections.
1934		C. Drew ‘Algy’ in Bulletin 8 Aug. 50/1: Algy blows in with a tribe of well-wishers. A tony lot.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 521: People with slight education, small incomes, and few social graces are always referring to the more affluent and successful as ‘dicties,’ ‘stuck-ups,’ muckti-mucks,’ ‘high-toned folks,’ ‘tony people.’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 20: It was one of those tony joints in Bond Street.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 66: Getting toney, aren’t you, kid?
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 86: He opened his toney café on the near South Side.
1964		E. Wilson Earl Wilson’s N.Y. 160: There are several very chi-chi or ‘tone’ outdoor places.
1966		C. Himes Run Man Run (1969) 108: She’s new on the stem. Too tony for a Time Square hustler.
1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 95: That tony joint he runs for hard guys.
1986		P. O’Farrell Tell me, Sean O’Farrell 22: The more ‘tony’ men donned plus-fours.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 28: It was understood [...]. that Gables-By-Sea sounded much more toney than Gables-by-the-Canal.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 176: It was a laid-back club, far more egalitarian than the tony New York Yacht Club.
1995		M. Simpson ‘Prufrock Scoused’ Catching Up with Hist. 24: Woorabowt me / all toney, kecks up to the knees at New Brighton.
2000		M. Dibdin Thanksgiving 23: But of course a toney guy like you wouldn’t be interested in that sort of thing.
2000		Indep. Mag. 26 Feb. 24: A 29-year-old graduate with short dyed-black hair and a ‘tony’ wardrobe.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 214: toney/tonky/tony Fashionable, as in swanky and high-toned, usually used disapprovingly. From c1935.
2008		Camden New Journal (London) Rev. 4 Sept. VII: The gangsters are like East End comics, the crackhead is toned, not trampy.
2012		‘Realoldbill’ asstr.org 🌐 One lived on Marshall Drive a mile or so away and the other in Glenville, a tony suburb north of school.
2022		G.M. Graff Watergate 662: He’d dined earlier [...] at D.C.’s tony Sans Souci.