Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A unit of weight for wool, especially one equivalent to about 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms).
  • noun A bushy clump, as of ivy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To yield a tod in weight; weigh or produce a tod.
  • noun A bush, especially of ivy; a thick mass of growing foliage.
  • noun An old weight, used chiefly for wool and varying in amount locally. It was commonly equal to 28 pounds.
  • noun A fox.
  • noun A drink; toddy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb obsolete To weigh; to yield in tods.
  • noun rare A bush; a thick shrub; a bushy clump.
  • noun An old weight used in weighing wool, being usually twenty-eight pounds.
  • noun A fox; -- probably so named from its bushy tail.
  • noun [U. S.] a close stove adapted for burning small round wood, twigs, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A fox.
  • noun Someone like a fox; a crafty person.
  • noun A bush; used especially of ivy.
  • noun An old English measure of weight, usually of wool, containing two stone or 28 pounds (13 kg).
  • verb obsolete To weigh; to yield in tods.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective alone and on your own
  • noun a unit of weight for wool equal to about 28 pounds

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English todde.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Apparently cognate with East Frisian todde ("bundle"), dialectal Swedish todd ("mass (of wool)").

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Examples

  • i have kept martin tod, chris rennard, nick clegg and the tory candidate steve brine in the picture about all of this and done my best to be open about the future but its not easy given the amount of hate towards me and the desire some people have to cause trouble.

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • The custom is now extinct, but formerly an Ivy bush (called a tod of Ivy) was universally hung out in front of taverns in England, as it still is in Brittany and Normandy.

    The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Henry Nicholson Ellacombe 1868

  • The tod was the same 28-pound measure, used specifically for wool.

    BBC News - Home 2010

  • i also really like to watch this one guy called tod wilbur who is absolutely fantastic with recreating restaurant foods.

    cooltwinz Diary Entry cooltwinz 2008

  • Why, of course there is skill and fascination in it, for it combines the virtues of golf and baseball, and "tod" is quite as good as a football goal.

    London's Underworld Thomas Holmes 1882

  • "Hop-scotch" season has commenced, and as if by magic the pavements of the narrow streets are covered with chalked lines, geometrical figures and numerals, and the mysterious word "tod" confronts you, stares at you, and puzzles you.

    London's Underworld Thomas Holmes 1882

  • Who can understand the intricacies of "hop-scotch" or the fascination of "tod"?

    London's Underworld Thomas Holmes 1882

  • As to toilet etiquette when on your tod, I would suggest that the answer depends on what you plan to do in there and how soon you are expecting people to return.

    Norwich City v Tottenham Hotspur – as it happened | Paul Doyle 2011

  • Jennifer Chen for the Wall Street Journal Ruea Thong's cooks are experts at deep-frying: tod mun goong, shrimp cakes, are light and greaseless, as are the goong foy tod, cakes of baby shrimp that come with a Chinese-style cucumber-chili salad.

    Eating in Southeast Asia 2011

  • I'd been forewarned that I'd be pretty much on my tod for the trip, my hosts all being wondrously insane enough to be putting on the show immediately before finals week.

    Archive 2010-06-01 Hal Duncan 2010

Comments

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  • :'( this Is disconcerting...

    July 16, 2008

  • In German: dead.

    September 11, 2008

  • Dot backwards.

    April 17, 2009

  • In Slovene: one of the three words for "there":

    tam means "at that place": Tam so bili vsi njegovi prijatelji. ("All his friends were there.")

    tja means "to that place": Gremo tja naslednji teden. ("We're going there next week.")

    tod means "through that place, along that way": Vsak dan hiti tod mimo. ("He hurries past there every day.")

    April 17, 2009

  • "'That's cobblers,' says Edgington. 'It's like this, Churchill likes his grub, but if he's caught eating venison on his tod, the Daily Mirror would be in an uproar. CHURCHILL EATS ROYAL DEER WHILE OUR LADS EAT CURRIED ITALIAN GRASS. So, as a cover he invites a load of hungry-guts Russians who are pissed off with black bread and onion soup, and they come at the double.'"

    - Spike Milligan, 'Mussolini: My Part In His Downfall.'

    April 19, 2009

  • An English unit of weight, chiefly for wool, commonly equal to 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms) but varying locally.

    May 2, 2009

  • This rustical son of the sod

    Is ready as any for fraud.

    The wool you apprise

    He'll pull over your eyes

    And sell you a stone as a tod.

    March 31, 2014