teetotum

American  

[tee-toh-tuhm] / tiˈtoʊ təm /

noun

1. any small top spun with the fingers.

2. a kind of die having four sides, each marked with a different initial letter, spun with the fingers in an old game of chance.

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teetotum British  

/ tiːˈtəʊtəm /

noun

1. a spinning top bearing letters of the alphabet on its four sides

2. such a top used as a die in gambling games

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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

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

As the train steamed out of the station, she howled like a wounded animal, spinning round like a teetotum, and waving her hands and arms wildly.

From Changing Winds A Novel by Ervine, St. John G. (St. John Greer)

Some did not approve of his playing at the teetotum for ten minutes with Kitty Dundas’s invalid son, but the way Kitty boasted about it would have disgusted anybody.

From The Little Minister by Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew)

As this command came from the long, thin man--he had apparently changed his mind about being looked in the face--Bertie turned with the celerity with which a teetotum turns.

From A Hero of Romance by Marsh, Richard

We had not been in the South Basin many minutes when the chaplain of The Missions to Seamen was among us with his witty stories and, I believe, his put-and-take teetotum.

From The Bonadventure A Random Journal of an Atlantic Holiday by Blunden, Edmund