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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

teetotum

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

Here, Mother, where did you get this teetotum?

From Chicken Little Jane on the Big John by Lily Munsell Ritchie

It spun round and round like a teetotum, then fell over to one side with a crash.

From A Hero of Li?ge by Herbert Strang

The bow is caught by the current and the steamer then rapidly "spun round" by its swiftness, almost as though on a teetotum, the engines meanwhile backing up.

From A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River by Barlow Cumberland

And so on ad nauseam till my brains were all in a whirl, and at night I dreamt I was a teetotum, and people were playing with me.

From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Gordon Stables

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