Tosspot

Tosspot is a British slang insult, which can mean, depending on the context, a drunkard, a masturbator, or an objectionable person.

The Word is of middle English origin, and, until recently, meant exclusively a person who drank heavily. Beer or ale was customarily served in ceramic pots, so a "tosspot" was a person who copiously 'tossed back' such pots of beer. The word "tosspots" appears in relation to drunkenness in the song which closes Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". [Shakespeare, William, "Twelfth Night", 5.1.] The morality play "Like Will to Like", by Shakespeare's contemporary Ulpian Fulwell, contains a character named Tom Tosspot, who remarks that :"If any poore man have in a whole week earned a grote,:He shal spend it in one houre in tossing the pot". [Citation | last=Fulwell | first=Ulpian | title="Like Will to Like" | url=http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama/tudor/lwtl.html .]

This meaning is losing currency, as "tosspot" is now often used synonymously with 'tosser' (or 'wanker') to mean literally a man who masturbates ('tosses' his penis), or by extension somebody who is obnoxious, irritating or ridiculous. This assumed meaning is because of the similarity with 'tosser' and with words like 'sexpot' which designate a person as a 'pot'. Dictionaries generally acknowledge both meanings of "tosspot".

References