subs. (common).—A teetotaller: also (in sarcasm, with a glance at TOT = to drink drams) = a hard drinker.

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  c. 1870.  Music Hall Song, ‘Hasn’t got over it yet.’ As well we’d another old chum, By all of his mates called the TOTE, So named on account of the rum He constantly put down his throat.

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  c. 1889.  Music Hall Song, ‘Toper and Tote.’ You’ll always find the sober TOTE With a few pounds at command.

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  See TOT.

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  Verb. (American).—To carry; to bear a burden; to endure. Hence TOTE-LOAD = as much as one can carry; TOTE-ROAD = a road or track.

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  18[?].  Negro Melody, ‘Come back, Massa’ [BARTLETT].

        De ’possum and de coon are as sassy as you please,
Since all de blooded dogs were TOTED off by fleas;
De measles TOTED off all de cunnin’ little nigs,
An’ de sojers ob de army hab TOTED off de pigs.

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  18[?].  Old Negro Song [A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant].

        Dey say fetch an’ TOTE ’stead of bring and carry,
An’ dat dey call grammar!—by de Lawd Harry!

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  1843.  B. R. HALL (‘Robert Carlton’) The New Purchase, I. 167. Here a boy was ferociously cutting wood—there one TOTING wood.

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  1844.  W. T. THOMPSON, Major Jones’s Courtship, 39. [The militia] had everlastin great long swords as much as they could TOAT. Ibid. (1848), Major Jones’s Sketches of Travels, 14. I could never bear to see a white gall TOATIN my child about, and waitin on me like a nigger. It would hurt my conscience. Ibid. (1847), Chronicles of Pineville, 169. My gun here TOTES fifteen buckshot and a ball, and slings ’em to kill.

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  1846.  D. CORCORAN, Pickings from the Picayune, 120. The watchman ‘TOTED’ him off to the calaboose.

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  c. 1869.  DONNELY, Speech in Congress [A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant]. I cannot think Mr. Ulysses S. Grant will degenerate into a kind of hand-organ to be TOTED around on the back of a gentleman from Illinois.

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  1873.  Transactions of the American Philological Association, xiii. 211. His report of his having induced the aristocratic Navajos to TOTE his luggage was received from the mouth of Gen’l Kane with a good-natured amused derision.

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  1890.  NEWMAN SMYTH, The Lake Country of New England, in Scribner’s Magazine, viii. Oct., 496. Its forests are still so unbroken by any highways, save the streams and the rough TOTE-ROADS of the lumber crews, that this region cannot become populous with visitors.

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  1884.  S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, vi. I TOTED UP a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest.

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  1888.  Science, xi. 18 May, 242. I should also like to know how much a man can TOTE, how much a woman can TOTE, and how long a time, without resting, the TOTING may go on.

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  1890.  O. THANET, Trusty, No. 49, in The Century Magazine, xl. June, 224. The bullies used to … make them TOTE more than their share of the log.

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  1890.  Century Dictionary, s.v. TOTE. Origin unknown; usually said to be an African word introduced by Southern negroes, but the African words which have come into English use through Southern negroes are few and doubtful … and do not include verbs.

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