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Tit

//tɪt// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person's breast or nipple. in-plural, slang, vulgar

    "I have enjoyed taking to my writing bureau and writing about poverty, benefit reform and the coalition government in the manner of a shit Dickens, or Orwell, but with tits."

  2. 2
    A light blow or hit (now usually in the phrase tit for tat). archaic, slang, vulgar
  3. 3
    A chickadee; a small passerine bird of the genus Parus or the family Paridae, common in the Northern Hemisphere. slang, vulgar
  4. 4
    small insectivorous birds wordnet
  5. 5
    An animal's teat or udder. slang, vulgar

    "A large bowl of suckulent ^([sic]) raspberries with clotted yellow cream fresh from the goat's tit on the diamond and ruby-studded glass end-table."

Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    Any of various other small passerine birds. slang, vulgar
  2. 7
    either of two soft fleshy milk-secreting glandular organs on the chest of a woman wordnet
  3. 8
    An idiot; a fool. Ireland, UK, derogatory, slang, vulgar

    "Look at that tit driving on the wrong side of the road!"

  4. 9
    A small horse; a nag. archaic, slang, vulgar

    "[…] he was reſolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more ſobriety."

  5. 10
    the small projection of a mammary gland wordnet
  6. 11
    A police officer; a "tithead". Ireland, UK, derogatory, slang, vulgar
  7. 12
    A young girl, later especially a minx, hussy. archaic, slang, vulgar

    ""What sort of a feringee is this?" said a lively little tit—"eh?""

  8. 13
    A morsel; a bit. slang, vulgar

    "Now if you can shew so neat a foot, ( shewing her shoe ) —Parlez moi de ça : —I suppose I was not noble enough for this squire; he must have a bit a blood, a tit of quality — but I shall be a countess soon, and a mighty good sort of countess I shall make."

Verb
  1. 1
    To strike lightly, tap, pat. intransitive, obsolete, slang, transitive, vulgar

    "Come tit me, come tat me, come throw a kiss at me—how is that?"

  2. 2
    To taunt, to reproach. obsolete, slang, transitive, vulgar

    "they would vpbraid me therewith calling me idle Drone; Titting and flouting at me, that I should offer to sit downe at boord with cleane hand."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English tit, titte, tette, from Old English tit, titt, from Proto-West Germanic *titt, from Proto-Germanic *tittaz (“teat; nipple; breast”), of expressive origin. Perhaps related to an original meaning “to suck”; compare Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-y-. Doublet of teat, which was borrowed from Old French. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tit, Dutch tiet, dialectal Dutch tet, German Zitze, Titte, Hunsrik Ditz, Yiddish ציצע (tsitse).

Etymology 2

Perhaps imitative of light tap. Compare earlier tip for tap (“blow for blow”), from tip + tap; compare also dialectal tint for tant.

Etymology 3

Perhaps imitative of light tap. Compare earlier tip for tap (“blow for blow”), from tip + tap; compare also dialectal tint for tant.

Etymology 4

Probably of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin; found earliest in titling and titmouse; compare Faroese títlingur, dialectal Norwegian titling (“small stockfish”).

See also for "tit"

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