Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Vulgar Slang A woman's breast.
  • noun A teat.
  • noun Any of various small insectivorous songbirds of the family Paridae of woodland areas, especially those of Eurasia and Africa.
  • noun Any of various similar birds.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pull.
  • To pull tightly.
  • A Middle English variant of tite.
  • noun In mech., a round projection on a tool or other piece to serve as a guide. A tit is usually made on the end of a counterbore, so that the hole made by it shall be concentric with the hole which it is desired to enlarge.
  • noun In the phrase tit for tat (literally, in the original form tip for tap, ‘blow for blow’), a retaliatory return; an equivalent by way of repartee or answer: as, to give a person tit for tat in a dispute or a war of wit.
  • noun A teat. See teat.
  • noun An abbreviation of title; [capitalized] of Titus (a book of the New Testament).
  • noun A small or poor horse.
  • noun A child; a girl; a young woman: a depreciatory term.
  • noun A bit; morsel.
  • noun One of several small birds.

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

  • noun A small horse.
  • noun A woman; -- used in contempt.
  • noun A morsel; a bit.
  • noun Any one of numerous species of small singing birds belonging to the families Paridæ and Leiotrichidæ; a titmouse.
  • noun The European meadow pipit; a titlark.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Wren tit, under Wren.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of Asiatic singing birds belonging to Siva, Milna, and allied genera.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any one of several species of small East Indian and Asiatic timaline birds of the genus Trichastoma.
  • noun An equivalent; retaliation.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of Asiatic and East Indian birds belonging to Suthora and allied genera. In some respects they are intermediate between the thrushes and titmice.

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

  • noun A mammary gland, teat.
  • noun slang, vulgar A woman's breast.
  • noun UK, pejorative, slang An idiot; a fool.
  • noun archaic A light blow or hit (now usually in phrase tit for tat).
  • noun A small passerine bird of the genus Parus or the family Paridae, common in the northern hemisphere.
  • noun Any of various other small passerine birds.
  • noun archaic A small horse; a nag.
  • noun archaic A young girl, later especially a minx, hussy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun either of two soft fleshy milk-secreting glandular organs on the chest of a woman
  • noun small insectivorous birds
  • noun the small projection of a mammary gland

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English titt.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for titmouse.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English titt, of uncertain origin. Cognate with dialectal Dutch tet, German Zitze, Titte. Probably related to an original meaning 'to suck'. Compare Albanian thith ("to suck, breast,tit"). Compare teat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps imitative of light tap. Compare earlier tip for tap ("blow for blow"), from tip, + tap; compare also dialectal tint for tant.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The bird, you pervert. ;-)

    February 13, 2007

  • Or for tat?

    Edit: hang on; we didn't have WeirdNet nine months ago, since I arrived before it did and that wasn't so long ago; so it just looks as though reesetee was answering the definition. A spectacular pre-WeirdNetting.

    November 29, 2007

  • Soft? Fleshy? What on earth are they used for?

    November 30, 2007

  • Thanks, VO--I was probably anticipating a flurry of delightful wisecracks from other Wordies. I do like the phrase "spectacular pre-WeirdNetting," though. :-)

    Bilby, that hurts just thinking about it.

    November 30, 2007

  • Etymology online:

    tit (n.2)

    1540s, a word used for any small animal or object (as in compound forms such as titmouse, tomtit, etc.); also used of small horses. Similar words in related senses are found in Scandinavian (Icelandic tittr, Norwegian tita "a little bird"), but the connection and origin are obscure; perhaps, as OED suggests, the word is merely suggestive of something small. Used figuratively of persons after 1734, but earlier for "a girl or young woman" (1590s), often in deprecatory sense of "a hussy, minx."

    March 20, 2018

  • Minx alert!

    March 20, 2018

  • There’s many a callow young wit

    Who,watching one flutter and flit,

    Has spread titillation

    And naughty elation

    Announcing his love of a tit.

    March 20, 2018

  • *titters*

    March 20, 2018