''teetotal'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''teetotal'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

teetotal - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

teetotal (comparative more teetotal, superlative most teetotal)

• Abstinent from alcohol; never drinking alcohol.
  • ✤ Synonyms: on the wagon, straightedge
  • ✤ There is absolutely a teetotal society here in the heart of the mountains, and some quarrelsome drunkards have become reformed!¹
• Opposed to the drinking of alcohol.
• (dated, emphatic) Total.
  • ✤ That’s a teetotal lie.²

Noun

teetotal (plural teetotals)

• One who abstains from drinking alcohol.
  • ✤ Synonyms: teetotaler, pioneer
  • ✤ Antonyms: alcoholic, dipsomaniac, drunkard
  • ✤ Hubert is trying to persuade James, a strict Presbyterian and teetotal, to come into the pub.³

Verb

teetotal (third-person singular simple present teetotals, present participle (US) teetotaling or (UK) teetotalling, simple past and past participle (US) teetotaled or (UK) teetotalled)

• (intransitive, uncommon) To advocate or practice the total abstinence from alcohol.

Etymology

From total,⁴ the reduplicated tee acts as an intensifier, hence T-total. First use appears in 1834.⁵⁶

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌtiːˈtəʊtəl/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. [1846], Religious Tract Society (Great Britain) (contributor), Jamaica, Enslaved and Free, →OCLC, page 88: ↩

2. 1858, Samuel Putnam Avery, The Harp of a Thousand Strings: Or, Laughter for a Lifetime, page 331: ↩

3. 2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 12, in Small Island ‎${}^{[1]}$, London: Review, page 137: ↩

4. Teetotalism on Wikipedia. Wikipedia ↩

5. “teetotal, adj. and n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

6. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “teetotal (adj.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

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