Now rare. See also bon-ton s.v. BON. [Fr. ton manner in general:—L. ton-us, TONE in coloring, etc.] The fashion, the vogue, the mode; fashionable air or style.
1769. Lloyd’s Evening Post, 18–20 Dec., 589. The present fashionable Ton (a word used at present to express every thing that’s fashionable) is a set of French puppets.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, I. i. None of the London whips of any degree of ton wear wigs now.
1778. Miss Burney, Evelina (1791), II. xxxvii. 244. Don’t we all know that you lead the ton in the beau monde?
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., Beautiful Incend., ix. And if she were here all alone, Our house might nocturnally boast A bumper of fashion and ton.
1812. Combe, Picturesque, XI. A mantle, too, is all the ton, And therefore I have order’d one.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, II. i. In everything … make my niece an accomplished woman, a woman of ton.
b. transf. People of fashion; fashionable society; the fashionable world.
1815. Sporting Mag., XLVI. 93. All the ‘Ton’s’ a stage, And Fashion’s motley votaries are but play’rs.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1885), I. xiv. 255. The princess, the nobles, and all the ton had disappeared.
