[f. TUFT sb. + HUNTER.] One who meanly or obsequiously courts the acquaintance of persons of rank and title (originally at the universities: see TUFT sb. 7, 7 b); a toady, sycophant.
1755. Connoisseur, No. 97, ¶ 1. I remember to have heard a cousin of mine,… formerly at Cambridge,… mentioning a sect of Philosophers, distinguished by the rest of the collegians under the appellation of Tuft-Hunters. These were … the followers (literally speaking) of the fellow-commoners, noblemen, and other rich students.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, xlv. Some … accused him of being a tuft-hunter, and flatterer of the aristocracy.
a. 1884. M. Pattison, Mem. (1885), 4. My father was too proud to be a tuft-hunter.
So Tuft-hunted a., sought after by tuft-hunters; Tuft-hunting sb., the practice of a tuft-hunter; adj. that is, or is characteristic of, a tuft-hunter.
1849. Thackeray, On Friendship, Wks. 1901, VI. 625. His old acquaintances … set the *Tufthunted down as the Tufthunter.
1894. Du Maurier, Trilby, II. 95. Little Billee was no tuft-hunter, he was the tuft-hunted.
1789. Loiterer, No. 11. 6. The diversion of *tuft-hunting … has been so long … practised in this place [Oxford].
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xix. Tuft-hunting is snobbish.
1829. [H. Best], Pers. & Lit. Mem., 101. He made no disgraceful *tuft-hunting distinctions in favour of noblemen or gentlemen commoners.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. 203. A tuft-hunting sort of Quietism.
