teetotum
Americannoun
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any small top spun with the fingers.
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a kind of die having four sides, each marked with a different initial letter, spun with the fingers in an old game of chance.
noun
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a spinning top bearing letters of the alphabet on its four sides
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such a top used as a die in gambling games
Etymology
Origin of teetotum
1710–20; earlier T totum, alteration of totum name of toy (< Latin tōtum, neuter of tōtus all) by prefixing its initial letter, which appeared on one side of the toy
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.
Though no disturbance was reported last week at Brooklyn's Evergreen Cemetery, by rights Anthony Comstock should have been spinning like a teetotum in his grave.
From Time Magazine Archive
Bevan, striding forward, spun the housemaid round on her feet as if she were a teetotum.
From Miss Arnott's Marriage by Richard Marsh
However, I could not augur ill of one who laughed so heartily, nor of the other, who seemed so happy in making himself a teetotum.
From Rattlin the Reefer by Frederick Marryat
“What right have you to try and supplant the servant of the house, who specially went out about it, you little meddlesome teetotum, I’d like to know, hey?”
From Fritz and Eric The Brother Crusoes by John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson
He reached down, seized a hind leg and whirling him around like a teetotum, sent him flying into the bushes, whence Chum launched again upon him, like a catapult.
From The Valiants of Virginia by Hallie Erminie Rives
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.
