tee-total

Entirey; total. A modern cant word, formed by reduplication, the syllable tee being used for the letter t.--Worcester.

Reading books is enough to ruin anybody. There ought to be tee-total societies against it.--J. C. Neal, Peter Ploddy, p. 15.

He lodged at a strictly teetotal house,

That he might not be shocked with hilarity,

And found among other teetotalisms,

A total exclusion of charity.--The Devil's New Walk.

The Preston (Eng.) chronicle gives an account of the funeral of Richard Turner, who, it says, was the originator of the term tee-totaller, as applied to those who abstain from intoxicating drinks.

The deceased had been upwards of fourteen years a member of the Temperance Society, having signed the pledge in October, 1832, while in a state of intoxication. It may not be generally known (says the Chronicle) how the term "tee-totallers" became first adopted by the members of the Total Abstinence Society, but we may inform our readers that Dickey, (that being the name by which Mr. Turner was familiarly called,) in one of his speeches, which were generally characterized by an equal mixture of wit and blunders, being at a loss for a word which would convey to the audience that he was an out-and-out total abstinence man, said, "I have signed the tee, tee-total pledge."

This speech was delivered in the Cockpit, at the latter end of the year 1833. The word, being short and expressive, was immediately adopted by the abstainers of Lancashire, and ultimately throughout England--nay, we may say throughout the world, for both in America and India the term is adopted by those who are pledged to abstain from all intoxicating liquors.