Tosspot
Tosspot is a British slang insult, which can mean, depending on the context, a drunkard, a masturbator, or an objectionable person.
The word is of Middle English origin, and, until recently, meant exclusively a person who drank heavily. Beer or ale was customarily served in ceramic pots, so a tosspot was a person who copiously 'tossed back' such pots of beer. The word "tosspots" appears in relation to drunkenness in the song which closes Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.[1] The morality play Like Will to Like, by Shakespeare's contemporary Ulpian Fulwell, contains a character named Tom Tosspot, who remarks that
- "If any poore man have in a whole week earned a grote,
- He shal spend it in one houre in tossing the pot".[2]
This meaning is losing currency, as tosspot is now often used synonymously with 'tosser' (or 'wanker') to mean literally a man who masturbates ('tosses' his penis), or by extension somebody who is obnoxious, irritating or ridiculous. This assumed meaning is because of the similarity with 'tosser' and with words like 'sexpot' which designate a person as a 'pot'. Dictionaries generally acknowledge both meanings of tosspot.
More recently, 'tosspot' has become synonymous with idiot. It is often used as an endearing term, as by wife to husband. [3]
In chapter 8 of the book 12 steps and 12 traditions Bill W. coins the phrase "... toss pot call(ing) a kettle black", alluding to the hypocrisy of a kitchen pot that is so cracked and worn that it deserves to be tossed away complaining of a little blackness on the outside of the kettle.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Shakespeare, William, Twelfth Night, 5.1.
- ^ Fulwell, Ulpian, Like Will to Like, http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama/tudor/lwtl.html.
- ^ British Slang Dictionary
- ^ "12 steps and 12 traditions", p78, Electronic .PDF version, September 2005+ ISBN 0-916856-01-1,Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.[1]
