Q: Inspired by your discussion of “mix and match,” I wonder if you can comment on “toss and turn.” As the comedian Demetri Martin says, he often turns in his sleep, but he doesn’t toss stuff all over his bedroom.
A: Yes, the verb “toss” has many meanings and you can have a lot of fun with them. You can toss a baseball, a salad, a coin, a party, an old newspaper, your head, or your cookies. You can toss down a drink, toss around an idea, or toss off a blog post. You can be tossed off a horse, tossed out of a game, or tossed into the slammer.
When the verb first appeared in English in the early 16th century, it meant to be thrown about at sea by waves or wind, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary’s earliest citation, which we’ve expanded, is from the diary of Sir Richard Guildford’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1506:
“Soone after midnyght the grete tempest byganne to swage [ease] and wex lasse [wax less]. Howbeit the wroughte sees tossyd and rolled vs ryght greuously.” Guildford, who served King Henry VII of England in many senior roles, died on Sept. 6, 1506, in Jerusalem. The diary, written by Guildford’s unnamed chaplain, was published in 1511.
By the end of the 16th century, the verb “toss” had most of its modern senses, including the one you’re asking about, which the OED defines as “to fling or jerk oneself about; to move about restlessly.” The dictionary’s first example is from a biblical passage: “I am euen ful with tossing to and fro vnto the dawning of the day” (Geneva Bible, 1560, Job 7:4).
But when “toss” and “turn” first appeared together, with the two words reversed, the verb phrase referred to turning and tossing hay, wool, grain, etc., to loosen it.
The first Oxford citation describes the shelling of “peason,” or field peas: “by turning & tossing, they shed as they lie” (Fiue Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry, 1573, by Thomas Tusser).
The earliest example we’ve found for “toss and turn” used in its modern sleepless sense is from an 18th-century travel journal kept by an Annapolis, MD, physician during a trip up the East Coast to New England:
“My rest was broken and interrupted, for the Teague [an obsolete nickname for an Irishman] made a hideous noise in coming to bed, and as he tossed and turned, kept still ejaculating either an ohon [an expression of grief] or sweet Jesus” (Itinerarium, 1744, by Alexander Hamilton).
The phrase appeared a few years later in the erotic novel popularly known as Fanny Hill: “after tossing and turning the greatest part of the night, and tormenting myself with the falsest notions and apprehensions of things, I fell, through mere fatigue, into a kind of delirious doze” (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1749, by John Cleland).
Finally, here’s a transcript of the “toss and turn” routine that Demetri Martin tweeted on Feb 24, 2020:
When people don’t sleep well, they say they tossed and turned. And I’ve definitely had rough nights where I turned a lot in my sleep, know what I mean? But I’ve never slept so poorly that I ended up, like, lightly throwing things around the room. It’s four in the morning, and I’m like, “Oh, shit. I’m tossing. Stop it. The hell am I doing? Go to sleep, man. Stop it. You’re tossing. Stop it.” You wake up the next day and there’s this crap everywhere. I’m like, “Oh, my God. I slept very poorly. And why do I own so many beanbags? This is making it worse.”
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