teetotal
pronunciation
How to pronounce teetotal in British English:
UK [ˌti:ˈtəʊtl]
How to pronounce teetotal in American English:
US [ˌtiˈtoʊtl]
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- Verb:
- practice teetotalism and abstain from the consuymption of alcoholic beverages
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- Adjective:
- practicing complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages
Word Origin
- teetotal
- teetotal: [19] The adverb teetotally is first recorded in America in 1832 (James Hall, in his Legends of West Philadelphia, recorded a Kentucky backwoodsman as saying ‘These Mingoes … ought to be essentially, and particularly, and tee-totally obflisticated off of the face of the whole yearth’); the tee represents the initial t of total, as if repeating it to give extra emphasis to the word.The application of the adjective teetotal to ‘total abstinence from alcohol’ (that is, including beer, and not just spirits) is virtually contemporary. It is credited to a certain Richard Turner, of Preston, Lancashire, who is reputed to have used it in a speech to a temperance society in September 1833.
- 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 while Century Dictionary allows that "the word may have originated independently in the two countries," OED favors the British origin and ones that Webster (1847) calls teetotaler "a cant word formed in England."
Example
- 1. A waiter comes by to take drinks orders and the teetotal duke asks for still water .
- 2. More people are teetotal , the number of underage drinkers has shrunk and consumption by 16 - to 24-year-olds is ebbing faster than in the overall population .
- 3. An analysis of the impact of alcohol on men 's health by a team at wageningen university in the netherlands found that long-term light consumption - less than 20 grams daily - is more beneficial than being teetotal .
- 4. Against this possibly rosy view , campaigners point out that a lot of people in britain , some 12 % , are teetotal ( starting with most muslims , whose numbers are increasing ) , which means that those who do drink consume more than overall figures suggest .
- 5. She is of course a non-smoking , teetotal vegetarian .