totty

See also: Totty

English

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɒti/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒti

Noun

totty (uncountable)

1. (UK, Ireland, slang) sexually attractive women considered collectively; usually connoting a connection with the upper class.
2. (UK, Ireland, slang) an individual sexually attractive woman
   • 2005, Georgina Hunter-Jones, Peckham Diamonds, Fly Fizzi Publishing, →ISBN, page 19:

     The mother screamed that Ali was a posh totty who held her nose up at ordinary folk with babies.

   • 2006, Richard Taylor, Eddie Shore 4 Jo, Lulu Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 29:

     Some posh totty, who was more than a little bit of a babe, just walks up and makes Eddie pull her, against his will almost.

   • 2006, Tonto Greenberg, J Bannister, The Blue Book : V. 1, Banland Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 32:

     The doctor attended a fancy dress ball dressed as Star Trek's Dr Spock but suddenly the costume split open and his phaser found its way into some totty.

Usage notes

Although denoting a countable subject, the noun is most often a mass noun. A single person is described as "some totty" or "a bit of totty"; a group of people can also be referred to as "some totty" or "the totty".

Synonyms

• talent

Related terms

• hotty

Etymology 2

Compare totter.

Adjective

totty (comparative more totty, superlative most totty)

1. (UK, obsolete, dialect) unsteady; dizzy, tottery, or rickety
   • c. 1600, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book VII (Two Cantos of Mutabilitie), Canto VII:

     Then came October full of merry glee: / For yet his noule [head] was totty of the must, / Which he was treading in the wine-fats see, […]

   • 1820, Walter Scott, chapter 32, in Ivanhoe:

     I tell thee, fellow, I was somewhat totty when I received the good knight's blow, or I had kept my ground under it.

   • 1820, Walter Scott, chapter 42, in Ivanhoe:

     I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar.

Etymology 3

From tot (“small child”).

Alternative forms

• toaty
• totey
• totie

Adjective

totty

1. (now chiefly Scotland) Tiny, wee.
   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 6:

     She would meet me with a summerbag: shoes and the little black number, though it had a totey hole at the shoulder […].