Late Middle English, of uncertain origin, but possibly from the same source as German Zotte (“clotted hair”), which see. Also cognate with Saterland Frisian todde (“bundle”), Swedish todd (“mass (of wool)”, dialectal).
Meanings
A bush, especially of ivy.
His head's yellow, / Hard-haired, and curled, thick-twined like ivy tods, / Not to undo with thunder. 1613–1614 (date written), John Fletcher, William Shak[e]speare, The Two Noble Kinsmen: […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Waterson; […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv, page 2:
The ivy tod is heavy with snow. 1797–1798 (date written), [Samuel Taylor Coleridge], “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], published 1798, →OCLC:
For birds in bushes tooting:
At length within the Ivy tod 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “March. Ægloga Tertia.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:
An old English measure of weight, usually of wool, containing two stone or 28 pounds (13 kg).
Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stone a tod, 6 1/2 tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. [...] It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds. 1843, The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume 27, page 202:
Generally, however, the stone or petra, almost always of 14 lbs., is used, the tod of 28 lbs., and the sack of thirteen stone. 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 209:
Late Middle English, of uncertain origin, but possibly from the same source as German Zotte (“clotted hair”), which see. Also cognate with Saterland Frisian todde (“bundle”), Swedish todd (“mass (of wool)”, dialectal).