Tall

adj. (old colloquial).—1.  Generic for worth. Thus TALL (= seemly) PRAYERS; A TALL (= valiant) MAN; TALL (= fine) ENGLISH; a TALL (= courageous) SPIRIT; A TALL (= celebrated) PHILOSOPHER; TO STAND TALL = to rely boldly; TALLY (= becomingly or finely) ATTIRED; a TALL (= great) COMPLIMENT, etc. [Century: ‘the word TALL (= high, lofty) as applied to a man has been confused with tall, fine, brave, excellent’: cf., however, sense 2]. Whence TALL FOR HIS INCHES = plucky for size.

  c. 1430.  The Destruction of Troy [E.E.T.S.], 3098. Ho tentit not in Tempull to no TALL prayers.

  c. 1360.  William of Palerne [E.E.T.S.], 1706.

  1364.  CHAUCER, Complaint of Mars and Venus, 38. She made him at her lust so humble and TALLE.

  1440.  Promptorium Parvulorum, 486. TAL, or semely. Decens, elegans.

  1448–60.  Paston Letters, 224. One of the TALLEST (= fine) young men.

  1595.  SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes;… By Jesu, a very good blade! a very TALL man…. Ibid. (1599), Henry V., ii. 1. 72. Thy spirits are most TALL. Ibid. (1602), Twelfth Night, 1. 3. 20. He’s as TALL a man as any’s in Illyria … he has three thousand ducats a year. Ibid. (1600), As You Like It, iii. 5. 118. He is not very TALL, yet for his years he’s TALL.

  1598.  JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, iv. 6. A TALL man is never his own man till he be angry.

  d. 1597.  PEELE, David and Bathsheba, xiii. Well done, TALL soldiers!

  c. 1600.  The Merry Devil of Edmonton, iii. 2. 162. He is mine honest friend and a TALL keeper.

  1613.  FLETCHER, The Captain, ii. 2.

  d. 1655.  T. ADAMS, Works, II. 443. We are grown to think him that can tipple soundly a TALL man.

  1699.  BENTLEY, A Dissertation of the Epistles of Phalaris (1817), 398. A TALL compliment.

  1754.  BOLINGBROKE, Fragments or Minutes of Essays, 65. I fear to go out of my depth in sounding imaginary fords that are real gulphs, and wherein many of the TALLEST philosophers have been drowned, whilst none of them ever got over to the science they had in view.

  1809.  MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 175. Young Pedro was what we call a TALL FELLOW FOR HIS INCHES.

  1886.  T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 46. We still hear people talk of TALL (fine) English.

  2.  (modern colloquial).—Anything out of the common: e.g., a TALL (= severe) FIGHT; TALL (= extravagant) TALK: whence TO TALK TALL = to GAS (q.v.); a TALL (= a great) PACE, etc. Hence as adv., very, exceedingly. Also, TO WALK TALL = to carry one’s head high; to put on SIDE (q.v.).

  d. 1704.  T. BROWN, Works, ii. 134. I for my part was to write BILLS as TALL as the monument, and charge them with the most costly medicines.

  1809.  G. W. KENDALL, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, I. 397–8. Stump straightened up and started at a pace that would have staggered Captain Barclay, Ellworth, or the greatest pedestrian mentioned in the annals of “TALL WALKING.”

  1843.  W. T. PORTER, ed., The Big Bear of Arkansas, etc., 22. A ‘live Sucker’ from Illinois, who had the daring to say that our Arkansaw friend’s STORIES ‘smelt rather TALL.’

  1846.  T. B. THORPE, The Mysteries of the Backwoods, 131. I will walk TALL into varmint and Indian; it’s a way I’ve got, and it comes as natural as grinning to a hyena.

  1847.  ROBB, Streaks of Squatter Life, 133. I seed he [Jess] warn’t pleased, but I didn’t estimate him very TALL, so I kept on, got a dancin’ with Sally, and ended by kissin’ her good by, that night, and makin’ Jess jealous as a pet pinter!

  1855.  HAMMOND, Wild Northern Scenes, 211. It had a mighty big pile of the TALLEST kind of land layin’ around waitin’ to be opened up to the sunlight.

  1869.  H. B. STOWE, Oldtown Folks, vi. I ’m ’mazing proud on ’t. I tell you I WALK TALL,—ask ’em if I don’t, round to the store.

  1891.  New York Times, 26 Jan., 3. 1, Review of ‘The Bookworm.’ There always has been some kind of a TALL YARN about the Jews wanting to buy the Vatican copy of the Hebrew Bible.

  1897.  MARSHALL, Pomes, 118. Her cheek was fairly ‘TALL.’

  1899.  KERNAHAN, Scoundrels & Co., xv. The M. P.’s and other public men who TALK TALL about the sacredness of labour.

  1901.  Free Lance, 16 March, 582. 1. The ‘boundary’ has absolutely nothing to do with TALL SCORING.

  1903.  Daily Telegraph, 7 April, 9, 1. There is even TALL TALK about extending the strike to other countries, if negotiations fail.