[f. TOY sb. + MAN sb.1) A man who sells toys, or who keeps a toy-shop: formerly, one who sold requisites for sports, trinkets, and fancy goods; now, one who makes or sells playthings for children (cf. TOY-SHOP 1, 2).
1707. Lond. Gaz., No. 4328/8. Ralph Ayscough, of St. James’s Westminster, Toyman.
1710–1. Swift, Jrnl., 7 Jan. I will go to the toyman’s here just in Pall Mall, and he sells great hugeous batoons.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XII. iv. The pocket-book … had cost five and twenty shillings, having been bought of a celebrated toyman.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 6, ¶ 5. The toyman will not give his jewels.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, Notes, Poet. Wks. (1891), 41/1. The jeweller, the toyman, the actor gains fame and wealth by the exercise of his useless and ridiculous art.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, Lond. of To-day, xl. (ed. 3), 347. Those admirable examples of the toyman’s craft—whole garrisons of miniature soldiers, artillery, cavalry, and infantry.
