teeth

teethe (tern), v. i.; pret. and pp. teethed, ppr. teething. [ teetotal (te'to'tal), a. [An emphatic reduplication of total. There are two accounts of the origin of this word. (a) The Rev. Joel Jewell (according to various accounts, confirmed by a letter from him to the editor of this dictionary), secretary of a temperance society formed at Hector, New York, in 1818, on the basis of a pledge to abstain from distilled spirits but not from fermented liquors, introduced in January, 1827, a pledge binding the signers to abstinence from all intoxicants. The two cla es of signers were distinguished as those who took the "old pledge," and had "O. P." placed before their names, and those who took the "new" or "total pledge" ("T."); the frequent explanation given of these letters made " T. - total " familiar. (b) Richard Turner, an artisan of Preston, in Lancashire, England, is said, in Tegenaria advocating the principle of temperance, about 1833, to have maintained that "nothing but te - te - total will do"; while a variation of this account makes the artisan a stutterer. Both accounts appear to be correct, and the word may have originated independently in the two countries.] 1. Total; complete; entire: used emphatically.-2. Of, pertaining to, or for the promotion of total abstinence from intoxicating liquors: as, a teetotal society, meeting, or pledge; the teetotal cause. The teetotal movement had been founded some years earlier by the Quakers of Cork, but it took no hold on the people till Theobald Mathew, a young Capuchin friar, joined it in 1838. W. S. Gregg, Irish Hist. for Eng. Readers, p. 143. 3. Pledged to total abstinence from intoxicating liquors. [Colloq.] I walk, I believe, 100 miles every week, and that I couldn't do, I know, if I wasn't teetotal . Mayhew , London Labour and London Poor, I. 403. teetotaler, teetotaller (tē'to'tal-ér), n. [ total + -er1.] One who more or le formally pledges or binds himself to entire abstinence from intoxicating liquors, unle medically prescribed; a total abstainer. But I am a teetotaller - said the divinity-student in a subdued tone. O. W. Holmes, Profe or, vi.