[f. the name of the hero of Burns’s poem of that name (i.e., Tom of Shanter).] In full, Tam o’ Shanter bonnet, cap: A soft woollen bonnet with flat circular crown, the circumference of which is about twice that of the head, formerly worn by Scottish ploughmen, etc.; introduced, in a modified form, c. 1887 as a head-dress for girls and young women. Abbreviated TAM, TAMMY.
1840–50. [Remembered in use].
1884. West. Daily Press, 29 May, 3/7. The Tam o’ Shanter is still occasionally worn [by men].
1887. Scott. Leader, 24 Sept., 5. Mr. O’Brien … was wearing an overcoat and a Tam o’ Shanter, for the morning air was chilly. Ibid., 19 Oct., 4. The head-dress [adopted by Dundee factory girls] is the modest one of either a single or double-peaked cap or a Tam o’ Shanter bonnet, and those workers who have adopted this … have been jeered at, and in some cases mobbed, while passing along the street.
1887. J. Ashby Sterry, Lazy Minstrel (1892), 26. Or if you think it right or wrong—I’ll wear my Tam o’ Shanter.
1888. Black, Adv. House-Boat, vi. A grey Tam o’Shanter … impervious to the wet.
1895. [see TAM].
Hence Tam o’ Shantered a., wearing a Tam o’ Shanter.
1892. E. Hoskyns, in Rep. Church Cong. Folkestone, 315. It is a positive insult to have a tennis bat flaunted in your face by some Tam-o’-Shantered girl when you are entering S. Mary Abbot’s for Holy Communion.
1894. Du Maurier, Trilby, I. 81. He married the … tartaned and tam-o’-shantered barmaid at the Montagnards Ecossais.
