Forms: see TOOTH sb.; also 5–6 -pike, 6 -picke. [See PICK sb.1 5.]
1. An instrument for picking the teeth: usually a pointed quill or small piece of wood; sometimes of gold, silver, or other material.
1488. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., I. 81. Twa tuthpikis of gold with a chenȝe.
1538. Elyot, Nitella, a toothe pike [1545 tothe pykar]. Sometyme it signifyeth elegancy in speche.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 34 b. Stickes and strawes and other tooth pickes.
1579. N. C. Wills (Surtees), II. 93. To Mr Roberte Toutte a tothe pyke of silver.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., ix. § 1 (1643), 450. Or these [porcupine] quills men make wholesome tooth-picks.
1775. Black, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 125. Stirring it gently with a quill tooth-pick.
1873. Doran, Lady of Last Cent., xi. 298. In her [Mrs. Montagu’s] saloons there was … a welcome which extended, so the satirical essayist affirms, from the manufacturer of toothpicks to the writer of an epic poem.
2. A name for the umbelliferous plant Ammi Visnaga, the hardened rays of the umbel of which are used as toothpicks: also called Spanish toothpick, toothpick bishop-weed (see 6 b).
1598. Florio, Bisacuto, the hearbe toothpick, or cheruill.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 330. Tooth-pick, Daucus.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Ammi Visnaga, Spanish Toothpick, Tooth-pick Bishop’s-weed.
3. pl. Splinters, small elongated fragments, ‘matchwood’: in hyperbolic phr. smashed [etc.] into toothpicks.
1839. Marryat, Phant. Ship, ix. The … ship will be beaten into toothpicks.
1899. Daily News, 9 March, 5/3. The Pavonia tried to lower a boat, but it was smashed into toothpicks on the ship’s side.
4. A bowie-knife: also Arkansas toothpick. U.S. slang.
1867. Lowell, Biglow P., Ser. I. i. 151. I didn’t call but jest on one, an’ he drawed toothpick on me, An’ reckoned he warn’t goin’ to stan’ no sech doggauned econ’my.
1881. A. B. Greenleaf, Ten Y. in Texas, 27. With a navy six-shooter and an Arkansas ‘tooth pick’ suspended to a raw-hide belt buckled around their waists.
5. A very narrow pointed boat. slang.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, iv. 104. ‘You should see one o’ them toothpicks histin’ up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathom water.’ ‘What’s a toothpick, Dan?’ ‘Them new haddockers an’ herrin’ boats.’
1909. J. Dalziel, High Life in East, 201. The Magistrate got smartly into his ‘toothpick,’ the attendant boat-boys … gave him carefully the necessary offing, he swung forward on his sculls.
6. attrib. and Comb. a. attrib. or as adj., † (a) in reference to the use of the toothpick as an idle occupation; (b) denoting objects of narrow and pointed shape.
1761. Churchill, Night, 109. Or if in tittle-tattle, tooth-pick way, Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray.
1767. S. Paterson, Another Trav., II. 168. To enjoy uninterrupted, listless, toothpick ease.
1880. ‘Mark Twain,’ Tramp Abroad, I. 235. A heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables,… toothpick steeples.
1895. S. B. Kennedy, in Outing (U.S.), XXVII. 6/1. [She] gave me the go-by for a patent medicine drummer with tooth-pick shoes.
b. Comb., as toothpick-box, -case; toothpick-shaped adj.; toothpick bishop-weed (see 2); † toothpick chervil = prec., or allied species.
1866. Treas. Bot., 51. *Tooth-pick Bishop-weed, A[mmi] Visnaga, is so called on account of the use made in Spain of the rays or stalks of the main umbel. These, after flowering, shrink, and become so hard that they form convenient tooth-picks.
1669. R. Montagu, in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 448. 2 knives, a *toothpick-box, and a tiremoelle.
1684. Lond. Gaz., No. 1972/4. A *tooth pick Case of Black wood, tipt on both ends, and at the opening with Silver.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, V. i. 615. This herbe is called … in Spayne, Visnaga:… it may be called *Toothpicke Cheruill.
1884. Times-Picayune, 30 Jan., 8/4. On the start Lee was considerably quicker than his opponent and his *toothpick shaped boat was nearly half a length in the lead for the first 160 yards.
1905. W. E. Geil, Yankee in Pigmy Land, v. 64. We tramped past many trees armed with long, white toothpick-shaped thorns.
