Note 111 — THE HUSBAND AS DOCTOR.106

Touzle or Tousle, in its original sense, meant “to rumple”—“to pull or mess about,” but came in time to signify, in erotic slang, the act of “mastering a woman by romping.” (Vide Farmer: Slang and its Analogues.) It belongs to that class of word connoting the sexual act which may be described as energetic, as implying a sense of lively action and movement. Farmer, under his key-word Ride, gives a number of similar terms, among them:—to belly-bump; to bounce; to cuddle; to ferret; to frisk; to fumble; to hug; to hustle; to jiggle; to jumble; to muddle; to niggle; to plough; to rummage; to shake; and to tumble. Touzle is Fielding’s term for the venereal act.