tallywag

English

Etymology

Unknown. Compare tallywhacker, which is attested later.

Noun

tallywag (plural tallywags)

1. (slang, now historical, chiefly in the plural) A testicle. [from 17th c.]
   • 1715, Samuel Butler, Posthumous Works in Prose and Verse, page 17‑18:

     And not forget that Pious Prince / Whose Tarriwags it held long since. / What tho’ that Codpiece’s dimension, / Shows something was of large extention

   • 2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 10:

     But any more lip like that and it's not the crack of this slingshot pebble that you'll feel but a fist curling your teeth and these clogs kicking your tallywags up into your mouth to meet them.

2. (archaic, slang) The penis. [from 19th c.]
   • 1941, D.H. Lawrence, The Merry-Go-Round, act I, scene 1:

     Mrs. Hemstock (rather faintly): I canna abide to feel a man’s arms shiverin’ agen me. It ma’es me feel like a tallywag post hummin’.

3. (uncommon) The black sea bass, Centropristis striata.
   • 1890, David Starr Jordan, Carl Eigenmann, A Review of the Genera and Species of Serranidae Found in the Waters of America and Europe, page 391:

     72. CENTROPRISTIS STRIATA. (the black sea-bass, black-fish, tally-wag, hannahill, black-will, black harry)

   • 2014, Bernard Guillas, Ronald Oliver, Two Chefs, One Catch: A Culinary Exploration of Seafood, page 220:

     These are our five favorites: Black Sea Bass ¶ Also called black perch, rock bass, chub, and tallywag

References

• Eric Partridge (1984) “tallywag; occ. tarriwag”, in Paul Beale, editor, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English […] , 8th edition, New York: Macmillan