tit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small, active songbird that often feeds on insects and seeds

   A blue tit landed on the feeder outside my window.

2. 2
   noun

   an informal and often offensive word for a woman's breast or a nipple

   The comedian was criticized for making a crude joke about a tit.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Tit has several distinct or uncertain histories. The bird name is probably Scandinavian and related to Icelandic titlingur, “sparrow.” It first appeared in English in titmouse, whose second element was originally mose, itself meaning “tit,” but changed to mouse in the 16th century, probably because of the bird’s small size and quick movements. Old English tit meant “teat” or “nipple” and shares a root with teat; its use for a woman’s breast died out in the Middle Ages and reappeared in American English in the mid-19th century. The term for a foolish person, used since the 19th century, may be the same word or may have developed from twit. A separate regional tit, recorded from the mid-16th century, meant “a light tap” and survives in tit for tat, where tat may be a form of tap.

The bird name comes from Middle English tit, probably an imitative or expressive name for something small. The anatomical sense is also found in Old English and is related to teat; although the two senses share the same spelling, they have distinct historical development.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary