Also 7 tost. [f. TOAST sb.2]
1. intr. To name a person to whose health or in whose honor, or a thing or sentiment to the success of which or in honor of which, the company is requested to drink; to propose or drink a toast. Const. to.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Tost, to name or begin a new Health. Who Tosts now? Who Christens the Health?
1701. F. Manning, Poems, 73. When ere I Toast … I’ll begin No Giant’s Health.
1709. Prior, Hans Carvel, 111. The Colonel toasted to the best.
1756. Toldervy, Hist. 2 Orphans, IV. 207. The sage of the cottage … toasted to the prosperity of his liberal benefactors!
2. trans. To name when a toast is drunk; to drink in honor of (a person or thing).
1700. Congreve, Way World, IV. v. Mirabell. That on no Account you encroach upon the Mens prerogative, and presume to drink Healths, or toast Fellows. Millamant.… I toast Fellows! odious Men!
1703. Rowe, Fair Penit., Epil. Ev’ry marry’d Man shall toast his Wife.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 462, ¶ 4. With continual toasting Healths to the Royal Family.
1775. Sheridan, Duenna, I. i. I love dearly to toast her.
1828. Macaulay, Ess., Hallam (1851), I. 53. The cause for which Hampden bled on the field and Sidney on the scaffold is … toasted by many an honest radical.
1836. Random Recoll. Ho. Lords, ix. 192. Times without number did he toast ‘The Liberty of the Press.’
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, I. x. They … toasted past and present heroes and beauties in flagons of college ale.
Hence Toasting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.; toasting glass, a glass used for drinking toasts, formerly inscribed with the name of a belle or with verses in her honor.
1703. Garth (title), Verses written for the Toasting-Glasses of the Kit-Cat-Club. Ibid., 28. When Jove to Ida did the gods invite, And in immortal toasting pass’d the night.
1821–30. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., i. (1874), 34. In that toasting and loyal age, the King was never forgotten.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xx. IV. 455. A few well turned lines inscribed on a set of toasting glasses.
1885. Manch. Exam., 14 May, 5/1. The institution of dinners with elaborate toasting.
