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Toy vs Elfin - What's the difference?

toy | elfin | Related terms |

Toy is a related term of elfin.


As a proper noun toy

is .

As a noun elfin is

an elf; an inhabitant of fairy-land.

As an adjective elfin is

relating to or resembling an elf, especially in its tiny size or features.

toy

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Something to play with, especially as intended for use by a child.
  • A thing of little importance or value; a trifle.
  • * Abr. Abbot
  • They exchange for knives, glasses, and such toys , great abundance of gold and pearl.
  • A simple, light piece of music, written especially for the virginal.
  • (obsolete) Love play, amorous dalliance; fondling.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.i:
  • Then seemed him his Lady by him lay, / And to him playnd, how that false winged boy, / Her chast hart had subdewd, to learne Dame pleasures toy .
  • (obsolete) A vague fancy, a ridiculous idea or notion; a whim.
  • *, vol.1, III.i.2:
  • Though they do talk with you, and seem to be otherwise employed, and to your thinking very intent and busy, still that toy runs in their mind, that fear, that suspicion, that abuse, that jealousy […].
  • * Spenser
  • To fly about playing their wanton toys .
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
  • What if a toy take 'em in the heels now, and they all run away.
  • * Drayton
  • Nor light and idle toys my lines may vainly swell.
  • (slang, derogatory) An inferior graffiti artist.
  • * 2009 , Gregory J. Snyder, Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground (page 40)
  • It is incorrect to say that toys tag and masters piece; toys just do bad tags, bad throw-ups, and bad pieces.
  • * 2011 , Adam Melnyk, Visual Orgasm: The Early Years of Canadian Graffiti (page 45)
  • I was a toy until I met Sear, who moved here from Toronto and showed me the book Subway Art.
  • (obsolete) An old story; a silly tale.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • (Scotland, archaic) A headdress of linen or wool that hangs down over the shoulders, worn by old women of the lower classes; called also toy mutch.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • Having, moreover, put on her clean toy , rokelay, and scarlet plaid.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * boy toy * chew toy * cuddly toy * sex toy * toylike * toyshop

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To play (with).
  • to toy with a piece of food on one's plate
    Figo is toying with the English defence.
  • To ponder or consider.
  • I have been toying with the idea of starting my own business.
  • (slang) To stimulate with a sex toy.
  • * 2013 , Jonathan Everest, Lady Loverly's Chattel
  • He could see her hand go to her slit, and soon she was toying herself along, breathing heavily.

    See also

    * game ----

    elfin

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) elven, from (etyl) elfen, .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An elf; an inhabitant of fairy-land.
  • A little urchin or child.
  • Etymology 2

    Partly from attributive use of Etymology 1, but reanalysed by Spenser as if equivalent to .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Relating to or resembling an elf, especially in its tiny size or features.
  • *
  • *:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 24, author=Nathan Rabin, work=The Onion AV Club
  • , title= Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , passage=He’s forced to travel back to 1969 to prevent an evil alien (a shockingly effective, nearly unrecognizable Jemaine Clement of Flight Of The Conchords, playing sort of a psychotic extraterrestrial-biker serial killer) from destroying the world by killing Brolin. Smith is aided in his quest by an elfin , time-jumping alien with psychic powers played by another Coen brothers veteran, A Serious Man star Michael Stuhlbarg. }}
    Synonyms
    * elvish