A.Word.A.Day --teetotal

A.Word.A.Day

About | Media | Search | Contact

Home

Today's Word

teetotal

PRONUNCIATION:

(tee-TOH-tuhl)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Practicing abstinence from alcohol.
2. Total; absolute.

ETYMOLOGY:

Coined by Richard Turner of Preston, England, in a speech calling for total abstinence, apparently as an emphatic form of the word total. Earliest documented use: 1833.

USAGE:

“The young man was teetotal by choice. Too many folk end up ruining themselves with the drink, he’d once told Lorimer.”
Alex Gray; Five Ways To Kill a Man; Witness Impulse; 2017.

See more usage examples of teetotal in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. -Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (2 May 1903-1998)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise