or towsle, verb. (colloquial).—To rumple; TO PULL (or MESS) ABOUT (q.v.); to ransack; freq. with ‘mousle.’ Whence (venery) = to master a woman by romping. Also TOUSY = rough, dishevelled, unkempt. [Cf. TOUSE.]
c. 1370. Thornton Romances [Camden Society], 239 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 81. The l is added, for the verb tuse becomes tousel (Scott’s TOWZEL)].
1530. TYNDALE, Works, ii. 151. He TOWSETH and mowseth.
1695. CONGREVE, Love for Love, iii. 10. He’ll TOUZLE her and mouzle her. The rogue’s sharp set … what if he should … fall to without the help of a parson, ha?
1763. FOOTE, The Mayor of Garratt, i. 1. You slut, how you’ve TOUSLED the curls.
1791. BURNS, Tam o’ Shanter. A TOWZIE tyke, black, grim, and large.
1791. Old Song, ‘My Jockey is a Bonny Lad.’ And then he fa’s a kissing, clasping, hugging, squeezing, TOUSLING, pressing, winna let me be.
1816. SCOTT, Old Mortality, xiv. She loot Tam TOUSLE her tap-knots. Ibid. (1816), The Antiquary, ix. After they had TOUZLED many a leather pokeful of papers.
1852. H. B. STOWE, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ix. A very heavy mat of sandy hair, in a decidedly TOUSLED condition.
1887. The Field, 27 March. A large TOUSEY dog that can kill singly a fox or badger.
