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  • "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."

    September 7, 2008

  • 1881, Adam Woolbever, Treasury of Wisdom, Wit and Humor, Odd Comparisons and Proverbs, page 464:

    A viceroy of Ireland asked one of his guests at a public dinner why there were no toads in Ireland? to which he replied, “because there are so many toad eaters."

    March 10, 2024