teetotal
Americanadjective
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of or relating to, advocating, or pledged to total abstinence from intoxicating drink.
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Informal. absolute; complete.
verb (used without object)
adjective
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of, relating to, or practising abstinence from alcoholic drink
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dialect complete
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of teetotal
Reduplicated variant of total, coined by R. Turner, of Preston, England, in 1833, in a speech advocating total abstinence from alcoholic drinks
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Zero-alcohol beers helped drive sales last year, the company said, as the teetotal portfolio, led by Corona Cero, surged 34% on year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
The irony is that David has actually been teetotal for two years.
From BBC ● Jan. 20, 2023
For quite a few people, this teetotal millennial - he had his 40th birthday during the first lockdown - appeared to be a reassuringly steady hand at the tiller.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2022
Unlike those moguls, he’s a buff, teetotal vegan with spartan tastes.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 27, 2021
The teetotal attitude of mind and the quarrels it aroused very properly disgusted Kingsley.
From The Law and the Poor by Parry, Edward Abbott
Mantz and his training partner, Clayton Young, are teetotaling former BYU teammates and missionaries who finished in the top 10 in the Paris Olympics marathon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2025
Whether teetotaling, temperance or virgin, they’re just drinks, after all — though I suppose their intricacy beyond fresh-squeezed juice demands we label them something nobler.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2024
Griffith’s teetotaling ways might have been mainstream in the 1920s, but following Prohibition’s repeal in December 1933, they made him an anachronism among baseball owners.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2023
Despite its Mormon majority, Utah is far from a teetotaling state.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2021
The shop’s name stems from a term of derision for the teetotaling, lecture-friendly Congregationalists who settled the town in the 1850s.
From New York Times ● Aug. 11, 2018
The teetotalling revolutionaries operated for years out of a second-floor office, above a liquor store, far from the diplomatic quarter.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 10, 2019
Does Paulson, the devout Christian Scientist, the teetotalling college football star, have some secret affiliation with 60s radicalism?
From The Guardian ● Feb. 10, 2017
Too many teetotalling whimsy cats in the scene for my liking.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 3, 2012
Playing a steady, nerveless game, the 34-year-old teetotalling saloon owner came from behind to catch American Walker Cup Player Bill Campbell and beat him 2 and 1 in the 36-hole final round.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
