toff — English Dictionary

Noun

1. An elegantly dressed person.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Synonyms

   macaronipopinjayswell

   Examples

   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 way

   More examples (1)

   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 don't know as I could say more than that."

2. A person of the upper class or with pretensions to it, who usually communicates an air of superiority.

   Usage

   • Ireland
   • UK usage
   • Derogatory

   Synonyms

   nobswellyah

   Antonyms

   oikpleb

   Examples

   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; […]

   More examples (5)

   ‘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.[…]’

   I came home first class—up the front end with the toffs—semi-anaesthetised throughout the trip by caviar and free champagne—and to hell with frugality and the conservation of resources.

   George Martin always seemed to me to be a "toff" and a gentleman even though his roots, like many of us, were in the common people. George has a touch of class that is quite impressive.

   Parkinson: You made films before, but the part that really made your name was Zulu, wasn't it […] and there of course—against type—you played the toff, you played the officer. Caine: I played the officer, yeah, and everybody thought I was like that. Everyone was so shocked when they met me, this like Cockney guy had played this toffee-nosed git.

   I like to see the toffs being toffs. The women all glammed up, the blokes in their tails and top 'ats, all braying and flinging their money around. Confirms all my prejudices. Just a reminder of who my enemies are.

Noun

1. informal term for an upper-class or wealthy person

   Synonyms

   nob

   Broader terms

   man of means