- toad
Toad in a hole ; meat baked or boiled in pye-crust.
He or she sits like a toad on a chopping-block ; a saying of any who sits ill on horseback.
As much need of it as a toad of a side-pocket ; said of a person who desires any thing for which he has no real occasion.
As full of money as a toad is of feathers.
- toad eater
A poor female relation, and humble companion, or reduced gentlewoman, in a great family, the standing butt, on whom all kinds of practical jokes are played off, and all ill humours vented. This appellation is derived from a mountebank's servant, on whom all experiments used to be made in public by the doctor, his master; among which was the eating of toads, formerly supposed poisonous.
Swallowing toads is here figuratively meant for swallowing or putting up with insults, as disagreeable to a person of feeling as toads to the stomach.
The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.