What is a 'Toff'?

Question

People keep telling me different things that are entirely different, and when I looked up on the internet, it didn't make any of them seemingly more true or whatever.

Answer 1

A toff is

- informal term for an upper-class or wealthy person

- a member of the upper classes, especially one who is elegantly dressed

It's British slang.

Answer 2

It's British slang  (and not much used anymore) for a well-dressed person, not necessarily of the upper class, who wishes to be seen as upper class.  The term is sometimes associated with snobbishness.  Other similar archaic defintions are dandy and fop.

I first encountered the word in British novelist John Creasey's series of mysteries featuring a sleuth known as The Toff.

Answer 3

In obsolete British usage, a toff is a dandy, a wealthy, sophisticated man.  The word was only used referring to someone in a higher class than the speaker.  Thus a toff would not refer to someone similar to himself as a toff.  It was not a term of admiration.

A swell was the same thing.  "His nibs" might refer to a toff.