subs. (common).—See quot.: used esp. for a heel through an undarned sock or stocking.
1885. BARING-GOULD, The English Illustrated Magazine, June, 616, ‘In the Lion’s Den.’ The gladiators wore pasteboard helmets … and fleshings for legs and arms, with—what are vulgarly termed ‘POTATOES,’ that is, holes in the fleshings perceptible in many places.
SMALL POTATOES, adv. phr. (American).—Petty; mean; contemptible: also as adj. and subs.
1846. New York Herald, 13 Dec. SMALL POTATO politicians and pettifogging lawyers.
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature, 38. It’s SMALL POTATOES for a man of war to be hunting poor game like us little fore-and-aft vessels.
1856. WHITCHER, The Widow Bedott Papers, 188. The Presbyterian minister here is such SMALL POTATERS.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 20 April. The Hardwicke Plate dwindled down to very SMALL POTATOES.
THE POTATO (or CLEAN POTATO), subs. phr. (common).—The best; THE WHITEST (q.v.); the tip-top: see A1.
1849. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, Pref. xxxvi. Of all rhymesters of the ‘road,’ however, Dean Burrowes is as yet most fully entitled to the laurel. Larry is quite THE POTATO.
1880. R. M. JEPHSON, A Pink Wedding, 235. “I am convinced he is a first-rate one—quite THE CLEAN POTATO, in fact.”
1899. The Sporting Times, 15 April, 2, 4. Mr. Pinero has … pulled his play out from the oven absolutely the CLEAN POTATO.
POTATOES AND POINT, subs. phr. (common).—Potatoes without salt: POINT = an imaginary seasoning, as in POINTING, to bacon, cheese, anything: cf. ‘Eat your bread and smell your cheese!’
1834. CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus [Century]. Their universal sustenance is the root named POTATO,… generally without condiment or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named POINT.
