Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as toddle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb colloq. To walk in a wavering, unsteady manner; to toddle; to topple.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb colloquial, intransitive To walk in a wavering, unsteady manner.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare toddle and totter.

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Examples

  • Without piling Pelion on Ossa (of rates) on my back, till my legs with the "tottle" limp,

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 Various 1876

  • Up, what's now called the "tottle" of those he surveyed,

    Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 4 Lucia Isabella Gilbert Runkle 1864

  • “And you tottle off and say, ‘Oh, okay, that would be a good idea,’” Coché continues.

    THE HUSBANDS AND WIVES CLUB LAURIE ABRAHAM 2010

  • She did not tottle up her milk-scores on the bastard-title.

    Gossip in a Library Edmund Gosse 1888

  • The old man was like to tottle off his stool with laughing, and he said, "Joe take good care of thysen '; thou art over sharp to live very long in this world; fill thy bags, and make on with thee."

    The Squire of Sandal-Side A Pastoral Romance Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr 1875

  • The sun under which we draw our breath, the soil we tottle over, in childhood, the air we breathe, the objects that earliest attract our attention, the whole system of things with which our youth is surrounded, impress firmly upon us ideas and sentiments which cling to us to our latest breath, and modify all our views.

    Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton Drayton, Daniel, b. 1802 1855

  • So often, he goes on to say, as this dreadful curse entailed upon Rome Imperial comes into my mind, so often 'Franciæ patriæ meæ felicitatem non possim non prædicare; quæ sub imperio Regum sexaginta trium (LXIII) -- non dicam CLX annos' (which had been the upshot of time, the 'tottle,' upon sixty-three Imperatores) sed paullo minus

    The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • The total English literature -- not the tottle only, but the tottle of the whole, like an oak and the masts of some great amiral, that once slept in an acorn -- absolutely lying hid in an eighteen-penny pamphlet!

    Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • The caster-up of sums cast a look at the delinquent, the tottle of the whole of which was, "you sha'n't be long on the debit side of our account."

    Rattlin the Reefer Edward Howard 1820

  • As there was no other outlet from thence — that he knew of — he made himself certain they must pass by him before they could leave the scene of their histrionic display, and probably the worthy Knight of the Spiggot consoled himself by casting up the “tottle of the whole”, as Mr Hume would say, and jingling imaginary coins in his breeches pockets, to be derived from the proceeds of the theatrical treasurer, whose harvest he was certain, from ocular demonstration, must have been a pretty productive one.

    Ralph Rashleigh 2004

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