subs. (old colloquial).—1.  A boisterous boy: see TOM; (2) a romping girl, a hoyden; whence (3) a strumpet: also TOM-RIG (B. E.). As adj. = rough, boisterous, wanton.

1

  1550.  UDALL, Royster Doister, ii. 4.

          C. Custance.  Is all your delite and ioy
In whiskyng and ramping abroade like a TOM BOY.

2

  1605.  SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline, i. 6. 122.

                            A lady,
So fair … to be partner’d
With TOMBOYS hir’d … with diseas’d ventures,
That play with all infirmities for gold.

3

  1605.  VERSTEGAN, A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1628), 234. TUMBE. To Dance … hereof we yet call a wench that skippeth or leapeth like a boy, a TOMBOY.

4

  c. 1617.  FLETCHER, The Knight of Malta, ii. 1.

            This is thy work, woman … you filly,
You tit, you TOMBOY!

5

  1637.  DAVENANT, Britannia Triumphans, ‘Mock Romanza.’ Giant. I’ll teach thee play the TOM-BOY, her the Rig.

6

  1657.  HOWELL, Londonopolis, 399. Some at stool-ball, though that stradling kind of TOMBOY sport be not so handsome for Mayds.

7

  d. 1734.  DENNIS, Pope’s Rape of Lock, 16. The author represents Belinda a fine, modest, well-bred lady, and yet in the very next canto she appears an arrant ramp and TOM-RIG.

8

  1891.  J. C. HARRIS, Balaam and His Master, in The Century Magazine, xli. Feb., 562. Just think of me at that age—what a TOMBOY I was!

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