[f. BOB sb.1 + TAIL.]
A. Properly two words: The tail (of a horse) cut short.
[Must be earlier than 1577: when the vb. occurs.]
1667. Lond. Gaz., No. 211/4. A fine light Bay Stone-horse … with his Mayne shorn, and a bob tail. Ibid. (1720), No. 5818/4. A brown Nag … with a Bob Tail.
B. attrib. Having a bob tail.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. vi. 73. Hound or Spaniell, Brache, or Lym: Or Bobtaile tight [tike] or Troudle [Qq. trundle] taile.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xxiii. The bob-tail Cur.
1848. Lowell, Biglow P., i. Trainin’ round in bobtail coats.
1883. Philadelph. Even. Star, 13 Feb., 3/4. Bob-tail Courtesies … The old familiar bob-tail cars.
C. sb.
1. A horse or dog with its tail cut short.
1676. Lond. Gaz., No. 1115/4. A white Mare, and a black Nag … both Bob-tails.
a. 1843. Southey, Ep. A. Cunningham, Wks. III. 309. Mongrel and cur and bob-tail, let them yelp.
† b. A kind of arrow: see quot.
1544. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 126. Those that be lytle brested and big toward the hede called by theyr lykenesse taper fashion … and of some merrye fellowes bobtayles.
† 2. transf. A contemptible fellow, a cur. Obs.
1619. Fletcher, M. Thomas, II. ii. 390. I’le not be bob’d i’ th’ nose with every bobtail.
† 3. (See quot.) Obs.
1583. Higins, Junius’ Nomenclator, 533 (D.). Cousins by mariage, or kinred (as they commonly terme it) by bobtaile.
4. collectively. [Perh. referring to 2 and 3.] Tag-rag and bob-tail, or tag, rag, and bob-tail: the common herd, the rabble. See TAG.
1659–60. Pepys, Diary, 6 March. The dining-room … was full of tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking.
1785. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Ode to R. A.’s, ii. Wks. 1812, I. 80. Tagrags and Bobtails of the sacred Brush.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, ii. 75. That lowest class of the community who are vulgarly denominated the Tag-Rag and Bobtail.
c. 1817. Hogg, Tales & Sk., V. 255. The tag-rag and bob-tail part of the citizens of Edinburgh.
1820. Byron, Blues, II. 23. The rag, tag, and bobtail of those they call ‘Blues.’
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xxxv. ‘We don’t take in no tagrag and bobtail at our house.’
