tittle

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English tytle, titel, titele, from Anglo-Norman titil, titule and Medieval Latin titulus (“small stroke, diacritical mark, accent”), from Latin titulus (“title”). Doublet of tilde, titer/titre, title, titlo, and titulus.

1. Any small dot, stroke, or diacritical mark, especially if part of a letter, or of a letter-like abbreviation; in particular, the dots over the Latin letters i and j.

   “The foure pricks or tittles are these. The first is a full prick or period. The second is a comma or crooked tittle.”

   “The words "jot" and "tittle" in this passage refer to diacritic marks, that is, dashes, dots, or commas added to a letter to accentuate the pronunciation.”

2. A small, insignificant amount (of something); a modicum or speck.

   “I am living fast to see the time when a book that misses its tide shall be neglected, as the moon by day, or like mackerel a week after the season. No man has more nicely observed our climate than the bookseller who bought the copy of this work; he knows to a tittle what subjects will best go off in a dry year, and which it is proper to expose foremost when the weather-glass is fallen to much rain.”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English titillen, tytyllen, perhaps variants of Middle English tutelen (“to whisper, chatter”), from tutel (“mouth”), from Old English *tūtel, *tȳtel, related to Old Frisian tūte (“mouth”). Compare Middle English touten (“to jut out, project, protrude”), Middle English toute (“projection, mound, hill”), Middle Dutch tûte (whence modern Dutch tuit (“spout, nozzle, nose, point, peak, summit”)), Old Norse túta (“a teat-like prominence”), Danish tude (“spout”).

1. To chatter.