Also 6–7 tofus, 7 tophis, -as. Pl. ǁ tophi; also 7 tophy, tophoes. tophuses, tofusses. [a. L. tōphus, better tōfus, a general name for loose porous stones of various kinds, whence It. tufo (also tofo in Florio, ‘a kind of soft, crumbling, or mouldring stone, to build withall’), Fr. tuf (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), ‘generic name of porous stones, produced in the form of sediment or incrustation, as calcareous, siliceous, volcanic tuf’ (Littré): see also TUFF, TUFA.]
1. A soft porous stone, arenaceous, calcareous, or volcanic; esp. a stony substance deposited by calcareous springs.
1555. Eden, Decades, 19. The stone cauled Tofus whiche is soone resolued into sande.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 161 (tr. Juvenal). How much more venerable had it beene, If grasse had cloth’d the circling banks in greene, Nor marble had the natiue tophis marr’d. Ibid., 272. The artificiall rocks, shells, mosse and tophas, seeme euen to excell that which they imitate. Ibid. (1621), Ovid’s Met., III. (1632), 84. A natiue Arch she drew, With Pumice and light Tofusses, that grew [III. 160 nam pumice vivo, Et levibus tophis nativum duxerat arcem].
1692. Ray, Disc., 111. Among Tophi and Stones in those dry places.
1696. Phil. Trans., XIX. 194. He produces one Echinus, bruised in the Tophus in which it lay.
1789. Pilkington, View Derby., I. vii. 316. I have seen a stag’s head … which was found in the tophus at Alport.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc., Tophus, the term has been applied to porous deposits of calcareous matter from water.
2. Path. A concretion that forms on the surface of the joints, the teeth, the pinna of the ear, etc., in gout; a gouty deposit; also gravel, or a stone or calculus, formed within the body.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 65. In the second venter of a cow there is a round black tophus found, being of no weight.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 71. Amoniacum … dissolveth Tophoes or hard stones grown in the flesh.
1663. Boyle, Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos., II. iii. 77. With a very few Doses … the Merchant was quickly free’d, not onely from his Pains, but from his Gouty Tophy.
1698. Tyson, in Phil. Trans., XX. 132. These Hairy Tophi are frequently to be met with in the Stomachs of Bruits.
1860. Mayne, Expos. Lex., Tophus. … Med. A name for the matter concreted in the joints of the gouty; also the calculous matter concreted in the kidneys and urinary bladder; also the tartar on the teeth. Surg. Term for a swelling particularly affecting a bone, or the periosteum: a toph.
1866. A. Flint, Princ. Med. (1880), 1103. These gouty concretions are called tophi or chalk-stones.
3. Comb. tophus-stone = TRAVERTIN.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 211. Pallas … enumerates a great many hot springs, which have deposited monticules of travertin precisely analogous in composition and structure to those of the baths of San Filippo, and other localities in Italy…. Speaking of the tophus-stone, as he terms these limestones, he often observes that it is snow-white.
