toff

Noun

toff (plural toffs)

1. (obsolete) An elegantly dressed person.
   • Last week down our alley came a toff, / Nice old geyser with a nasty cough, / Sees my missus, takes his topper off, / Quite in a gentlemanly way1899, Rudyard Kipling, “Judson and the Empire”, in Many Inventions, New York: D. Appleton & Company, page 398
   • The cabman scratched his head. "Well, he wasn't altogether such an easy gentleman to describe. I'd put him at forty years of age, and he was of a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. He was dressed like a toff, and he had a black beard, cut square at the end, and a pale face. I...1901 August – 1902 April, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Three Broken Threads”, in The Hound of the Baskervilles: Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, London: George Newnes, […], published 1902, →OCLC...

   Synonyms:

   macaroni, popinjay, swell, barbermonger, beau, blade, blood, buck, carpet knight, cockscomb

2. (Ireland, UK, derogatory) A person of the upper class or with pretensions to it, who usually communicates an air of superiority.
   • Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza would qualify him, a toff), and speaks like one; […]1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion. Sequel: What Happened Afterwards.”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, page...
   • ‘Well, I got Parkes for one, and I got Atkinson for two, and got Ward of Dawson Street. Fine old chap he is, too—regular old toff, old Conservative! “But isn’t your candidate a Nationalist?” said he.[…]’1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 160

   Synonyms:

   nob, swell, yah

   Antonyms:

   oik, pleb