sb. and a. Sc. Also 9 taupy, taupie, tawpee. [Prob. from Norse: cf. Norw. taap ‘half-witted person, chiefly of women’ (Ross), Da. taabe fool, simpleton, Sw. tåp simpleton, tåpig foolish, weak-minded.]
A. sb. A foolish, senseless, or thoughtless girl or woman; idle tawpie, a slattern.
1728. Ramsay, Monk & Miller’s Wife, 135. ‘Pottage,’ quoth Hab, ‘ye senseless tawpie!’
1787. Burns, Verses at Selkirk, iv. Gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools, Frae colleges and boarding-schools.
1824. Miss Ferrier, Inher., xl. That light-headed tawpee [a servant] is off to a sick mother.
1834. Tait’s Mag., I. 610/2. Many of his female friends were very accomplished, whom he thought useless tawpies for all that.
1902. Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald, 5 June, 2. The word taupie meaning a foolish petted person.
B. adj. Foolish, senseless, empty-headed. (Said in reference to a girl or woman.) Now rare.
1814. Saxon & Gael, I. 46 (Jam.). Comin’ to his table wi’ my tawpy dochter in her auld gown.
1823. Galt, Entail, xvi. The tawpy taunts of her pridefu’ customers.
1826. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 174. Great langlegged, tawdry and tawpy limmers standin at closes.
a. 1836. Affleck, Poet. Wks., 80 (E.D.D.). Taupie Meg is just as bad, A common limmer.
