Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Totally; entirely: used emphatically.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb colloq. Entirely; totally.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Very completely, very totally.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From totally, the reduplicated tee being an intensifier.

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Examples

  • _Beshawled Crone (towing an aged beggar-man who wears a framed placard reminding the public that "charity covers a multitude of sins," and announcing that the bearer is not only "teetotally" deaf and dumb, but also blind, barmy and partially paralysed).

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-21 Various

  • And when Evans floridly described how two customers had been chiseled by a shoeshine boy—“On examination of their boots they discovered that they had more real estate than blacking on the outer surface, and an examination of their pockets showed conclusively that both parties were teetotally impecunious”—Twain translated the words into simple English: “Their boots were soiled with dust and they had no money.”

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • And when Evans floridly described how two customers had been chiseled by a shoeshine boy—“On examination of their boots they discovered that they had more real estate than blacking on the outer surface, and an examination of their pockets showed conclusively that both parties were teetotally impecunious”—Twain translated the words into simple English: “Their boots were soiled with dust and they had no money.”

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • A lot of times it would just teetotally disgust him that it couldn't be done that way because we had a production rate to run.

    Oral History Interview with Ivey C. Jones, January 18, 1994. Interview K-0101. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) 1994

  • It used to always just teetotally piss me off because they always made it sound like, you know, we don't do anything.

    Oral History Interview with Ivey C. Jones, January 18, 1994. Interview K-0101. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) 1994

  • When I first saw Bill taking pictures of the plant it teetotally pissed me off.

    Oral History Interview with Ivey C. Jones, January 18, 1994. Interview K-0101. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) 1994

  • He felt so good over the turn of affairs that he could scarcely walk up the long hill so weak was he with laughter over Joe's wall-paper circus clothes, nor did his good humor forsake him until they approached the spot where the tent, the work of many weeks, lay on the ground teetotally wrecked.

    Watch Yourself Go By Ben W. [Illustrator] Warden

  • Nurse said that that was about the first thing that showed how teetotally utterly they were going to disagree about things.

    Mary Marie 1920

  • First I found out how they happened to marry -- Father and Mother, I'm talking about now -- only Nurse says she can't see yet how they did happen to marry, just the same, they're so teetotally different.

    Mary Marie 1920

  • It had completely, teetotally, mysteriously and extraordinarily disappeared.

    Bully and Bawly No-Tail Howard Roger Garis 1917

Comments

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  • See comment on teetotal.

    December 9, 2010