subs. (colloquial).—1. Usually in pl. = a PET (q.v.); the sullens; angry whims (GROSE).
1754. FOOTE, The Knights, ii. I am glad here’s a husband coming that will take you down in your TANTRUMS; you are grown too headstrong and robust for me.
1796. BURNEY, Camilla, III. v. He was but just got out of one of his TANTARUMS.
1820. GREVILLE, Memoirs, 20 Nov. He threw himself into a terrible TANTRUM … they were obliged to let him have his own way for fear he should be ill.
1844. THACKERAY, Barry Lyndon, xvii. If in any of her TANTRUMS or fits of haughtiness … she dared, etc.
1853. BULWER-LYTTON, My Novel, XI. ii. He has been in strange humours and TANTRUMS all the morning.
1884. C. READE, Art, 250. She went into her TANTRUMS and snapped at and scratched everybody else that was kind to her.
2. (venery).—The penis; see PRICK.
1675. COTTON, Burlesque upon Burlesque: or, The Scoffer Scofft, in Works (1725), p. 278.
| Betwixt some twelve and one a clock, | |
| He tilts his TANTRUM at my nock. |
