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The phrase I have heard most often from my father usually went like this:

Well I'll be hung for a toad!

Where did this saying come from and has anyone else heard it? My dad's dad & mother were respectively Scots & Irish if that helps. He would exclaim that saying when something was a surprise.

It's not mentioned in online dictionaries such as Merriam Webster.

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  • In order to try to prevent this question from being closed as "requires research", I'm adding a reference to a dictionary. I also made some (hopefully minor) changes to the title to make it clearer. However, given that I cannot find the expression anywhere on the internet, I doubt that you'll get any answer.
    – Laurel ♦
    Nov 2, 2018 at 6:31
  • Possibly a mutation of "I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb"?
    – michael.hor257k
    Nov 2, 2018 at 9:16
  • My father occasionally said, as an expression of surprise "I'll go to Putney on a pig!" Another expression quite well known in the East Midlands of England is "I'll go to the foot of our stairs!" Perhaps they are all euphemisms for "I'll be damned!"
    – Kate Bunting
    Nov 2, 2018 at 9:21

1 Answer 1

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meta: Look up the word toad in a good dictionary, not the phrase.
*"Hung for a toad" is not a set phrase or idiom.

A toad is a [2 A] contemptible or detestable person (used as a general term of abuse)

"Well I'll be hung for a toad!"

should likely mean that one will get severely punished for behaving in a contemptible or detestable manner.

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