Chapter Tintoretto of Switzerland to Tite Barnacle of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Tintoretto of Switzerland to Tite Barnacle

Tintoretto of Switzerland (The), John Huber (eighteenth century).

Tiphany, the mother of the three kings of Cologne. The word is manifestly a corruption of St. Epiphany, as Tibs is of St. Ubes, Taudry of St. Audry, Tooley [Street] of St. Olaf, Telder of St. Ethelred, and so on.

Scores of the saints have similarly manufactured names.

Tiphys, pilot of the Argonauts; hence any pilot.

Many a Tiphys ocean’s depths explore,
To open wondrous ways untried before.
   —Ariosto: Orlando Furioso, viii. (Hoole).

Another name for a pilot or guiding power is Palinurus; so called from the steersman of Æneas.

E’en Palinurus nodded at the helm.
   —Pope: The Dunciad, iv. 614 (1742).

Tippins (Lady), an old lady “with an immense obtuse, drab, oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon; and a dyed long walk’ up the top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind.” She delights “to patronize Mrs. Veneering,” and Mrs. Veneering is delighted to be patronized by her ladyship.

Lady Tippins is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list of her lovers, and is always booking a new lover or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book, which she calls her Cupidon.—Dickens: Our Mutual Friend, ii. (1864).

Tipple, in Dudley’s Flitch of Bacon, first introduced John Edwin into notice (1750–1790).

Edwin’s “Tipple,” in the Flitch of Bacon, was an exquisite treat.—Boaden.

Tippoo Saib (Prince), son of Hyder Ali nawaub of Mysore.—Sir W. Scott: The Surgeon’s Daughter (time, George II.).

Tips or “Examination Crams.” Recognized stock pieces of what is called “book work” in university examinations used to be, before the reform: Fernat’s theorem; the “Ludus Trojanus” in Virgil’s Æneid (bk. vi.); Agnesi’s “Witch;” the “Cissoid” of Diocles; and the famous fragment of Solon, generally said to be by Euripidês.

In law examinations the stock pieces used to be: the Justinian of Sandars; the Digest of Evidence of sir James Stephen; and the Ancient Law of sir Henry Maine.

(The following were recognized primers:—Mill’s Logic; Spencer’s First Principles; Maine’s Ancient Law; Lessing’s Laocoon; Ritter and Preller’s Fragmenta; Wheaton’s International Law.)

Tiptoe, footman to Random and Scruple. He had seen better days, but, being found out in certain dishonest transactions, had lost grade, and “Tiptoe, who once stood above the world,” came into a position in which “all the world stood on Tiptoe.” He was a shrewd, lazy, knowing rascal, better adapted to dubious adventure, but always sighing for a snug berth in some wealthy, sober, old-fashioned, homely, county family, with good wages, liberal diet, and little work to do.—Colman: Ways and Means (1788).

Tirante the White, the hero and title of a romance of chivalry.

“Let me see that book,” said the curé; “we shall find in it a fund of amusement. Here we shall find that famous knight don Kyrie Elyson of Montalban, and Thomas his brother, with the knight Fonseca, the battle which Detrianté fought with Alano, the stratagems of the Widow Tranquil, the amour of the empress