tottle

tottle

English

Etymology 1

Compare toddle and totter.

Verb

tottle (third-person singular simple present tottles, present participle tottling, simple past and past participle tottled)

1. (colloquial, intransitive) To walk in a wavering, unsteady manner.
   • 1870, Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery

     I should not, however, so much mind if this folly [of giving children poetic names] were comprised in that domain of cold gentility, to which affectation usually confines itself. One does not regard seeing Miss Arabella seated at the piano, or her little sister Leonora tottling across the carpet to show her new pink shoes. That is in the usual course of events.

Etymology 2

From total.

Verb

tottle (third-person singular simple present tottles, present participle tottling, simple past and past participle tottled)

1. (archaic, dialect) To add up; to sum to a total.
   • 1902, Bram Stoker, The Mystery of the Sea (page 38)

     It may be that the days o' fine follow ane anither fast; or that the foul times linger likewise. But in the end, the figures of fine and foul tottle up, in accord wi' their ordered sum.

See also

• tot
• tot up

References

• 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary