Word.ws English Dictionary

tommy

Syllables: tom·my/ˈtɒmi/US/ˈtɑmi/

tommy noun: a British infantryman, especially one from World War I. Ellipsis of Tommy Atkins. Also the abbreviation of Tommy gun.

Noun (1)

tommy (countable and uncountable, plural tommies)

  1. (UK, slang) A British infantryman, especially one from World War I. Ellipsis of Tommy Atkins.
    Synonyms:
    tommy boy
  2. (UK, obsolete, slang) Bread or breadlike foodstuff, generally a penny roll.
  3. (UK, obsolete, slang) The supply of food carried by workmen as their daily allowance.
  4. (UK, obsolete, slang) A truck, or barter; the exchange of labour for goods instead of money; the scrip by which such exchange occurs.
    • No. 84. April 6. * * * * * *, aged 13: Works at gimlets and centre-bits, &c.; works from six in the morning till seven at night; has worked here about two years; gets 4s. 6d. a week. Works for one of the men; every man pays his own boy; is paid in tommy; the man he works for gives him a note to the...1842, Commissioners for Inquiring into the Employment and Condition of Children in Mines and Manufactories, “Evidence of the Employment of Children”, in Appendix to the Second Report of the...
  5. A tommy bar.
  6. (dated, slang) Tommyrot; nonsense.
    • 'Don't talk tommy, Guy!' she exclaimed half wrathfully. 'As if I could possibly put on two left shoes without knowing it, even if I could get them on. […]'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
  7. (obsolete, slang) Synonym of dicky (“detachable shirt front”).
    Synonyms:
    dicky

Verb

tommy (third-person singular simple present tommies, present participle tommying, simple past and past participle tommied)

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang, transitive) To pay (employees) according to the truck system, with goods instead of money.

Proper noun capitalized: Tommy

Tommy

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Thomas.
    • The Tory hard right is in the ascendancy, and a fascist street movement – led by convicted fraudster Tommy Robinson – represents a growing threat.2018 July 18, Owen Jones, “The hard right can only be defeated from the left, not from the centre”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2018
    • The Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tommy Pham was suspended by Major League Baseball for three games on Saturday after he slapped the San Francisco Giants outfielder Joc Pederson because of a dispute about their fantasy football league.2022 May 29, “MLB bans Tommy Pham for slapping opponent over fantasy football dispute”, in The Guardian, sourced from Associated Press, archived from the original on 02 Jul 2022
  2. (uncommon relative to the male given name) A diminutive of the female given name Thomasina.

Noun (2) capitalized: Tommy

Tommy (plural Tommies)

  1. (abbreviation, colloquial, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Tommy Atkins, a typical private in the British army; a British soldier.
    • Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
      But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll1892, Rudyard Kipling, Tommy
    • And every night now he played pontoon, that game of the Tommies, with Mrs Bolton, gambling with sixpences.1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XV, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC
    1. (broadly, colloquial) Any common soldier; a member of the rank and file.
      • May was in New Zealand when war broke out, and immediately left for France, where she worked in a military hospital in a converted high school in Marseilles. Writing home, she said that the French officers were said to be 'fussy' so she was glad to be nursing the Tommies (meaning French rank and...2017, Janet Tolerton, Make Her Praises Heard Afar: New Zealand Women Overseas in World War One, →ISBN, page 38
  2. (obsolete, rare) A lesbian.
    • Here, here, here again! Coquettes, flirts, harlots, adultereſſes, tulips, pinks, roſes, lilies, violets, wormwood, fennel, and hemlock! Unnatural, unnatural, unnatural! Tommies, Tommies, Tommies! Women kiſſing women; doating, languiſhing, dying, pining, crying, caterwauling, for each other! Ha, ha...1777, [Anon.], “Number XVII. A faſhionable, diſgraceful Paſſion expoſed.”, in The Laughing Philosopher, Dublin: Printed for James Williams, →OCLC, page 91
  3. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of tommy boy.
  4. penis
    • Resolutely I refrained from thrusting or withdrawing for a minute or two and then drew out slowly to her lips and as I pushed Tommy gently in again, she leaned up and kissed me passionately.1922, Frank Harris, “X”, in My Life and Loves

Also used as

tommy is also the abbreviation of Tommy gun.

tommy meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tommy in Hindi

टॉमी, टामी

tommy in Tamil

டாமி, டோமி, டாமிக்கு

tommy in Marathi

टॉमी, टॉमीकडे

tommy in Urdu

ٹامی, ٹومی, ٹاممی
More languagesFewer languages
tommy in Bengali
টমি, টমির কাছে
tommy in Telugu
టామీ, టోమీ, టామ్మీ
tommy in Malayalam
ടോമി, ടോംമി, ടോമിയെ
tommy in Kannada
ಟಾಮಿ, ಟಾಮ್ಮಿ, ಟಾಮಿಗೆ
tommy in Punjabi
ਟੌਮੀ, ਟਾਮੀ, ਟੌਮੀ ਤੱਕ
tommy in Gujarati
ટોમી, ટોમમી, ટૉમી
tommy in Odia
ଟମି, ଟମୀ, ଟମ୍ମି
tommy in Nepali
टोमी, टमी, टामी

Examples of tommy in a sentence

  • Tommy the Tyke is the mascot of Barnsley FC.
  • A set of two tommy bars is the standard tooling for the spindle nose threads of some minilathes and minimills.
  • Tommy was just an awful man for the paper - couldn't get enough of the stuff!

All 19 example sentences with tommy

Synonyms of tommy

Forms of tommy

Noun
pluraltommies
pluralTommies
Verb
third-person singular presenttommies
present participletommying
past participletommied
pasttommied

Plural of tommy: tommies

Origin of tommy

Generally agreed to have come from appellativization of Tommy in most senses, but the historical details are apparently largely unknown, including whether such an evolution happened several times (with one sense being independent of another).

From Tom + -y.

Words formed from tommy

Phrases with tommy

7 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with tommy

Questions about tommy

What does tommy mean?
Tommy means a British infantryman, especially one from World War I. Ellipsis of Tommy Atkins.
What is tommy in Hindi?
Tommy in Hindi is टॉमी, टामी. See Tommy meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tommy?
Tommy can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tommy?
Tommy is pronounced /ˈtɑmi/ (US).
What is the plural of tommy?
The plural of tommy is tommies.

Words near tommy in the dictionary

  1. tomming
  2. Tommis
  3. Tommo
  4. tommorow
  5. Tommotian
  6. tommy
  7. Tommy Atkins
  8. tommy bar
  9. tommy bars
  10. tommy boy
  11. tommy boys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tommy (page history and authors); Tommy (page history and authors); tommy (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tommy (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tommy.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Tommy.wav.

Cite this entry: “tommy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tommy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.