Tom

subs. (colloquial).—1.  A generic slight: e.g., TOMBOY, TOM-DOUBLE, TOM-FARTHING, TOM-FOOL, TOM-NODDY (all of which see): in quot. a contemptuous reference to the use of bells in the ceremonial of the mass.

  1648–55.  FULLER, The Church History of Britain, V. iv. 28. Item, That the singing or saying of masse, mattens, or evensong is but a a roreing, howling, whisteling, mumming, TOMRING, and jugling.

  2.  (old).—A deep-toned bell: e.g., Great (or Big) TOM of Oxford, Lincoln, Exeter: probably onomatopœia. Whence AFTER TOM = after 9 P.M.: at that hour Big TOM of Christchurch, Oxford, strikes one for every student in residence (101); when it ceases the gates are closed and late comers are fined on a sliding scale up to midnight, after which delinquents are GATED (q.v.).

  1630.  M. WHITE [RIMBAULT, The Rounds, Catches and Canons of England, 30].

  1635.  TOM a Lincolne, ii. [W. J. THOMS, Early English Prose Romances, ii. 246]. Hee sent … a thousand pounds in treasures, to be bestowed upon a great bell to be rung at his funerall, which bell he caused to be called TOM a Lincolne, after his own name, where to this day it remaineth in the same citie.

  1648.  CORBET, On Great Tom of Christ-Church.

  1807.  SOUTHEY, Don Espriella’s Letters from England, xlv. We ascended one of the other towers afterwards to see Great TOM, the largest bell in England.

  1880.  The Saturday Review, 27 Nov., 670. No one knows why ‘TOM’ should have been twice selected for great bells…. Indeed, TOM of Oxford is said to have been christened Mary, and how the metamorphosis of names and sexes was effected is a mystery.

  1882.  SMYTHE PALMER, Folk-Etymology, 397. TOM … seems … imitative of the booming resonance of its toll … TOM-TOM, a drum … so ‘Ding-dong, bell’ (Tempest, i. 2. 403), and Dr Cooke’s round, ‘Bim, Bome, bell.’

  1900.  FARMER, Public School Word-Book, s.v. TOM … The great bell of Christ Church formerly belonged to Oseney Abbey, and weighs about 17,000 lbs.

  3.  (provincial).—A close-stool (HALLIWELL).