teetotal
- of or relating to, advocating, or pledged to total abstinence from intoxicating drink.
- Informal. absolute; complete.
- to practice teetotalism.
Origin of teetotal
Examples from the Web for teetotalling
Historical Examples
Come to the smoking room, and let's see what you can do after teetotalling for a year.
The PhilandererGeorge Bernard Shaw
Take my word for it, but old Johnsen was a bit sore that night; and wishing he'd never gone in for teetotalling!
Dry Fish and WetAnthon Bernhard Elias Nilsen
teetotal
- of, relating to, or practising abstinence from alcoholic drink
- dialect complete
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for teetotalling
teetotal
v.
"pledged to total abstinence from intoxicating drink," 1834, possibly formed from total (adj.) with a reduplication of the initial T- for emphasis (T-totally "totally," though not in an abstinence sense, is recorded in Kentucky dialect from 1832 and is possibly older in Irish-English).
The use in temperance jargon was first noted September 1833 in a speech advocating total abstinence (from beer as well as wine and liquor) by Richard "Dicky" Turner, a working-man from Preston, England. Also said to have been introduced in 1827 in a New York temperance society which recorded a T after the signature of those who had pledged total abstinence, but contemporary evidence for this is wanting, and Webster (1847) calls teetotaler "a cant word formed in England."