Also 6 tyt, titte, 6–8 titt, 7 tytt. [app. of onomatopœic origin, as a term for a small animal or object; found also to some extent in Scandinavian and Icel.; cf. Norw. dial. titta little girl, tîta a little fish, trout, sprout, minute growth, little kernel, little ball or marble, Icel. tittr a little plug or pin, also, a titmouse (Norw. tite): see also TITLING, TITMOUSE, in which tit occurs much earlier than by itself.]
I. 1. A name for a horse small of kind, or not full grown; in later use often applied in depreciation or meiosis to any horse; a nag. Now rare.
1548. Patten, Exped. Scotl., D j. He rode on a trottynge tyt well woorth a coople of shillynges.
1563. Golding, Cæsar, IV. (1565), 85. But such [beastes] as are bred among them though they be littel tittes & yll shapen, they make … to be very good of labor.
1598. Florio, Bidetto, a little horse, a nagge, a tit, a little doing borse.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 538. If you will let them haue anie Tytt or meane Iade to goe before them, and lead the way.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Tits, a Country-word, for small Cattel.
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), Tit, a little Horse, and some call a Horse of a middling Size a double Tit.
1797. Sporting Mag., IX. 338. I keep a curricle and a brace of tits.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xi. I have as good a tit as ever yeoman bestrode.
1894. Astley, 50 Years Life, II. 186. A very promising tit named Woodstock.
† b. fig. of a person, etc. See also 2. Obs.
1706–7. Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., I. i. As to our Hearts, I grant ’ye, they are as willing Tits as any within Twenty Degrees.
a. 1734. North, Exam., I. iii. § 40 (1740), 145. As the willing Tits of the Party, and weaker Brethren.
2. A girl or young woman: often qualified as little: cf. chit. (a) Usually in depreciation or disapproval: esp. one of loose character, a hussy, a minx. (b) Sometimes in affection or admiration, or playful meiosis. (Common in 17th and 18th c.; now low slang.)
1599. Middleton, Micro-Cynicon, Wks. (Bullen), VIII. 122. He hath his tit, and she likewise her gull; Gull he, trull she.
1606. Sir G. Goosecappe, IV. ii., in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 69. Hang am Tytts! ile pommell my selfe into am.
1606. Choice, Chance, etc. (1881), 66. His Dad a Tinker, and his Dam a Tit.
1693. Humours Town, 11. My little Tit … loves the Town, as well as my self.
1787. Beckford, Italy (1834), II. 363. A bevy of young tits dressed out in a fantastic, blowzy style … drew their chairs round us [at an assembly in Madrid].
1837. T. Creevey, Papers, etc. (1904), II. 324. I am sure from Lady Tavistock that she thinks the Queen a resolute little tit.
1886. Fenn, Master Cerem., vii. She’s a pretty little tit.
† b. Rarely applied to a lad or young man. Obs.
1599. Massinger, etc., Old Law, III. ii. Must young court tits Play tomboys’ tricks with her, and he [her husband] live?
II. 3. A word used in comb. in the names of various small birds as TITLARK, TITLING, TITMOUSE, TOMTIT, q.v. Used alone, as a shortened form of TITMOUSE, applied to a. any bird of the genus Parus, and, more widely, any member of the family Paridæ; b. With qualification: some birds of other families as the Bearded tit: see TITMOUSE 2 b; Hill-tit: see HILL sb. 4 f.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Tit, or Titmouse, a little Bird.
1802. Marsh Tit [MARSH 4 b].
1831. Bearded Tit (see reed-pheasant, REED sb.1 14].
1843. [see COAL-TIT].
1845. Blue-tit [BLUE a. 12 a].
1851. Bottle-tit [BOTTLE sb.1 5].
1859. Tennyson, Geraint & Enid, 275. Tits, wrens, and all wing’d nothings peck him dead!
1880. A. R. Wallace, Isl. Life, ii. 20. These are all the European tits, but there are many others.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 14 April, 15/2. No longer do bands of tits drift through the woods or along the hedgerows. Strange … that the long tailed tit, the only species of the group that builds its nest in a bush, should be the first to start.
c. attrib. and Comb., as tit-like adj.; tit-babbler, one of several species of hill-tits, esp. Trichostoma rostratum; tit-pipit, a name of the TITLARK or meadow pipit, Anthus pratensis; tit-warbler, ‘a bird of the subfamily Parinæ’ (Swainson).
1893. Newton, Dict. Birds, 26. The … Babblers, often with a prefix such as Bush-Babbler, Shrike-Babbler, *Tit-Babbler,… belong chiefly to the Ethiopian and Indian Regions.
1907. Westm. Gaz., 15 March, 4/2. But all the rest are bustling about in their own restless, *tit-like manner.
1819. G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 303. Inhabits the black grouse and *tit-pippit.
