Forms: 6 toocke, tock, Sc. towk, 7, 9 tocque, 9 toque, (toke). [a. F. toque (15th c. in Godef.), app. the same word as It. tocca cap, ‘tinzell cloath of Gold or siluer’ (Florio), Sp. toca a female head-dress, ‘toca or tocado, a womans kerchiefe or coife’ (Minsheu), Pg. touca a woman’s coif. Ulterior origin uncertain.]
1. a. A kind of small cap or bonnet worn by men and women in various countries. (In quot. 1505, a large tippet.)
1505. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., III. 42. Item, for vij quartaris taffetj to be ane gret tepat to the King, callit anc towk.
1582. N. Lichefield, trans. Castanheda’s Conq. E. Ind., I. ii. 29. The hayre of their heades is long lyke vnto womens, and pleited vnder theyr toockes, which they weare on theyr heades.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 244. On their heads they weare a small tock of three braces, made in guize of a myter, and some goe without tocks, and cary (as it were) a hiue on their heades.
1644. Evelyn, Diary, 23 Nov. The Knight Gonfalonier and Prior of the R. R. in velvet tocques.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., vii. To confound our Scottish bonnets with these pilfering vagabonds’ tocques and turbands, as they call them.
1864. Babbage, Passages Life Philos., 366. A kind of head-dress called a toke.
b. † A cushion or pad worn by women to raise up the hair (obs., quot. 1817); also, a kind of head-dress (quot. 1835); now, since c. 1880, a kind of bonnet, cap, or small hat without a projecting brim, or with a very small or closely turned-up brim.
1817. Mar. Edgeworth, Harrington, xiii. A sort of triangular cushion, or edifice of horse hair … called I believe a toque or a system, was fastened on the female head…, and upon and over this system the hair was erected, and crisped, and frizzed [etc.].
1835. Ladies’ Cabinet, Jan., 68. Ball Dress…. Head-dress a white satin toque, profusely trimmed with white ostrich feathers. Ibid., March, 202. The head-dress is a toque of pink terry velvet,… the brim very deep.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, iv. Her hats, toques,… marabouts, and other fallals.
1881. Miss Braddon, Asph., xxvii. Her neat travelling-gown of darkest olive cashmere, and coquettish little olive-green toque.
1903. N. & Q., 9th Ser. XI. 366/1. The term ‘bonnet,’ as applied to the costume of ladies, may be taken to mean either bonnets or tocques, but not hats.
attrib. 1834. West. Daily Press, 29 May, 3/7. The toque hat is too comfortable, too convenient, and too becoming to be lightly laid aside.
2. Toque monkey, also simply toque: the bonnet-monkey or bonnet-macaque, Macacus pileatus, a native of Sri Lanka (see BONNET sb. 10).
1840. Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 59. The Bonneted Macaque (Macacus sinicus) and the Toque (M. radiatus) have the hairs on the top of the head disposed as radii.
1882. Ogilvie (Annandale), Toque … 2. A name given to the bonnet-macaque.
1883. List Anim. Zool. Soc., 16. Macacus pileatus (Shaw), Toque Monkey.
1892. Pall Mall G., 28 Sept., 3/1. The Guinea baboons and the toque monkeys.
