subs. (old literary: now colloquial).—An attempt, endeavour (GROSE), trial, experiment: espec. (modern) a TRY-ON = an attempt at BESTING (q.v.). Hence TO TRY IT ON = to seek to outwit, get the better of, fleece, cheat, etc.: see GAMMON. TO TRY IT ON A DOG = to experiment at another’s expense or risk; TO TRY ON (thieves’) = to live by thieving: COVES WHO TRY IT ON = professed thieves (GROSE); TO TRY IT ON WITH A WOMAN = to attempt the chastity (BEE).
1609. SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens, v. 1. This breaking of his has been but a TRY for his friends.
1848. GASKELL, Mary Barton, xxvii. Don’t give it up yet…. Let’s have a TRY for him.
18[?]. Trying It On [Title of a popular farce].
1874. BEETON, The Siliad, 57.
| We do not pardon the flagitious claims— | |
| Call them, or damages, ‘TRIES-ON,’ or shames. |
1899. N. GOULD, Racecourse and Battlefield, vi. Owen Righton did have a TRY, but … Alec Medway brought him up short.
PHRASES AND COLLOQUIALISMS.—TO TRY A FALL WITH = to compete, contest; TO TRY BACK = to revert to, to retrace one’s steps: as to a former position, standpoint, or statement, etc., with a view to recover something missed, or lost: hence TRYBACK (BEE).
1857. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, i. 7. The leading hounds … are TRYING BACK.
1859. LEVER, Davenport Dunn, xi. She was marvellously quick to discover that she was astray and TO TRY BACK.
1887. Nineteenth Century, xxii. 812. Would it not be well then TO TRY BACK? to bear in mind … that meat is suitable for grown men, that milk is suitable for babes?
