subs. (common).—1. Generic for edibles; (2) = an appetite: spec. (schools’) pastry, sweet-stuff, and the like. Whence TUCK-SHOP = a pastrycook’s; TUCK-PARCEL = (Charterhouse) a hamper from home: nearly obsolete. Also (Australian) TUCKER = (1) food, GRUB (q.v.), spec. (2) barely sufficient on which to live, ‘bare bread-and-cheese.’ As verb (or TO TUCK IN) = to eat heartily: TUCK-IN (or TUCK-OUT) = a ‘square meal.’ [Cf. TACK = generic for food, and which, at Sherborne School, = a feast in one’s study.]
1840. A. BUNN, The Stage, I. 295. Nothing can stop the mouth of a TUCK-hunter.
1847–8. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, v. His father … gave him two guineas publicly, most of which he spent in a general TUCK-OUT for the school.
1856. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, I. vi. Come along down to Sally Harrowell’s; that’s our school-house TUCK-SHOP. She bakes such stunning murphies. Ibid., I. v. The slogger looks rather sodden, as if he didn’t take much exercise and ate too much TUCK.
1858. Morning Chronicle, 31 Aug. Diggers, who have great difficulty in making their TUCKER at digging.
1873. GREENWOOD, In Strange Company, 62. A ‘TUCK OUT,’ which in Hale’s Street is short and simple language for as much as can be eaten.
1874. GARNET WALCH, Head over Heels, 73.
| For want of more nourishing TUCKER, | |
| I believe they’d have eaten him. |
1875. WOOD and LAPHAM, Waiting for the Mail, 33. We heard of big nuggets, but only made TUCKER.
1886. Daily Telegraph, 1 Jan. They set me down to a jolly good TUCK-IN of bread and meat.
1890. Argus, 14 June, 14. 1. When a travelling man sees a hut ahead, he knows there’s water inside, and TUCKER and tea.
1890. NOAH BROOKS, The Boy Settlers, in St. Nicholas, xviii. Dec., 125. What a TUCK-OUT I had!
1891. BOLDREWOOD, A Sydney-side Saxon, 83. I took my meal in the hut, but we’d both the same kind of TUCKER.
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, iii. You get your TUCK-IN Sundays. Lord! give me a reg’lar sixpence every day for grub, and I warrant I ’d never starve.
1901. W. S. WALKER, In the Blood, 39. And they were off for a day’s holiday and a camp-out as long as they could run it, TUCKER being the one essential.
Verb. (old university).—See quot.
d. 1695. WOOD, Life, 45. If any of the Freshmen came off dull or not cleverly some of the … Seniors would TUCK them—that is set the nail of their Thumb to their chin, just under the Lipp, and by the help of their other fingers under the Chin, they would give him a Mark which sometimes would produce Blood. Ibid., 46. Nothing was given him but salted drink … with TUCKS to boot.
TO TUCK UP, verb. phr. (old).—1. To hang: see LADDER. Hence TUCKED UP = hanged; TUCK-’EM FAIR = an execution (B. E. and GROSE).
1740. RICHARDSON, Pamela, I. 141. I never saw an execution but once, and then the hangman asked the poor creature’s pardon, and … then calmly TUCKED UP the criminal.
1800. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter. He was knocked down for the crap the last sessions. He went off at the fall of the leaf at TUCK’EM FAIR.
c. 1811. Old Song, ‘The Night before Larry Was Stretched.’ He was tucked up so neat and so pretty.
2. (colloquial).—To perplex, to put in a fix or difficulty, to cramp.
1886. The Field, 13 Feb. They have been playing the old game of skirting, eventually to find themselves fairly TUCKED-UP by wire-fencing.
1887. VISCOUNT BURY and G. L. HILLIER, Cycling, 189. A closely built fifty-eight inch racer will be noticeably too short in the reach for him, and he will feel that he is what cyclists call ‘TUCKED-UP.’
To TUCK ON, verb. phr. (American).—To unduly increase or enhance: e.g., ‘That horse is not worth half what you gave for him; the dealer has TUCKED IT ON to you pretty well’: cf. ‘STICK IT ON.’
See TWOPENNY.
