"T" Word Origins

toss

Middle English

From Middle English tossen, "to buffet about or agitate," of uncertain earlier origin, possibly linked to Old Norse or Middle English tosen, "to pull apart."

tosser

Origin

From toss plus the agent suffix -er; the insult sense comes from toss's slang meaning "to masturbate."

tosspot

Origin

From toss + pot.

tot

Origin

The "add up" sense is a clipping of total; the "small child" sense developed separately in English dialect use.

totable

Origin

From tote + -able.

total

Medieval Latin

From Old French total, from Medieval Latin totalis, from Latin totus, "all, whole, entire."

totalistic

Origin

From totalist + -ic.

totalitarian

Italian

From Italian totalitario, "complete, absolute," combined with the suffix -an.

totalitarianism

Origin

1938, from totalitarian + -ism, modeled after Italian totalitarismo (1923, by Giovanni Amendola) and German terms such as Totalstaat (1927, The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt).

totality

Origin

Formed from total plus the noun suffix -ity.

totally

Origin

Formed from total plus the adverb suffix -ly.

totalness

Origin

From total + -ness.

tote

German

Origin uncertain, possibly linked to a Middle Low German word for a horn or conical bag, or alternatively borrowed from a Bantu language word meaning "to carry" or "to pick up."

totem

Origin

Borrowed from Ojibwe odoodem, meaning "his kinship group" or clan emblem.

toter

Origin

From tote + -er.

totes

Origin

An informal shortening of "totally," with a playful "-s" ending added for effect.

Toth

Origin

From Hungarian Tóth (“Slav”).

Tottenham

Old English

From Old English personal name Totta, in the genitive case Tottan + hām (“homestead”).

totter

Origin

From Middle English totren, toteren, from earlier *tolteren (compare dialectal English tolter (“to struggle, flounder”); Scots tolter (“unstable, wonky”)), from Old English tealtrian (“to totter, vacillate”), from Proto-Germanic *taltrōną, a frequentative form of Proto-Germanic *taltōną (“to sway, dangle, hesitate”), from Proto-Indo-European *del-, *dul- (“to shake, hesitate”). Cognate with Dutch touteren (“to tremble”), Norwegian dialectal totra (“to quiver, shake”), North Frisian talt, tolt (“unstable, shaky”). Related to tilt.

tottersome

Origin

From totter + -some.

touch

Vulgar Latin

From Old French tochier ("to touch"), traced back through Vulgar Latin and Frankish roots meaning "to strike" or "to grasp" — the same deep root that gave English the word "tuck."

touchable

Origin

From Middle English touchable, toucheable, equivalent to touch + -able.

touchdown

Origin

A compound of touch and down, originally describing the act of touching the ball down in the goal area.

touché

French

From French "touché," touched — from fencing, called out to acknowledge being hit by an opponent's blade.

touching

Origin

Formed from touch plus the suffix -ing.

touchstone

Origin

A compound of touch and stone, from the literal stone used to test metals.

touchwood

Origin

Apparently from touch + wood, but perhaps the first element is derived from torch.

touchy

Origin

A variant of the older word tetchy ("easily irritated"), reshaped over time under the influence of touch.

tough

Old English

From Old English tōh, meaning "tenacious" or "sticky, holding fast together" — related to words in German (zäh) and Dutch (taai) that carry the same sense.

toughen

Origin

Formed from tough plus the suffix -en, which turns adjectives into verbs meaning "to make (more) so."

toughie

Origin

From tough + -ie.

toughness

Origin

Formed from tough plus the noun-forming suffix -ness.

toulmin

Origin

Metathesized variant of Tomlin.

Toulouse

Latin

From French Toulouse, ultimately from Latin Tolosa, a name of pre-Roman origin.

toupee

French · 1700

Borrowed in the 18th century from French toupet, meaning "small tuft of hair" or forelock.

tour

Old French

From Old French tour/tourn, related to the verb tourner, "to turn."

tourabout

Origin

From tour + about.

tourette

French · 1885

Verbed from the name of the French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who first described the syndrome in 1885.

tourism

Origin

Formed from tour plus the suffix -ism, following the pattern of nouns describing systems or industries.

tourist

Origin

Formed from tour plus the agent suffix -ist, following the pattern of words describing a person who does something.

tournament

Old French

From Old French tornoiement, related to the verb tornoier, describing knights wheeling and jousting on horseback.

tourney

Old French

From Old French tornei, related to tornoier ("to joust").

tourniquet

French

From French tourniquet, related to tourner ("to turn"), referring to how the band is twisted tight.

Tours

Latin

From Latin Turonum, named after the Turones, a Gaulish tribe that once inhabited the area.

tout

Old English

From Middle English touten, "to peer out" or "protrude," from Old English roots meaning "to stick out" — the sense shifted to "to advertise loudly."

TOV

Origin

Ukrainian initialism ТОВ, short for tovarystvo z obmezhenoiu vidpovidalnistiu, literally "company with limited liability."

tow

Old English

From Old English togian, related to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to pull," shared with words like "tug" and "team."

toward

Old English

From Old English tōweard, formed from to plus the suffix -ward, meaning "in the direction of."