Now dial. [Goes with TIT sb.2: app. an onomatopœic match to TAT v.1, the lighter vowel expressing lighter action and sound: cf. tip and tap, pit-a-pat, etc.]
1. trans. and intr. To strike or tap lightly, pat, tip.
(Quot. 1589 appears to be a parody of ‘Come tit me, come tat me, Come throw a kiss at me,’ quoted of date 1607 under TAT v.1 This seems to have been a couplet from an old song, current before 1589.)
1589. [? Lyly], Pappe w. Hatchet, B j b. Elderton swore hee had rimes lying a steepe in ale, which shoulde marre all your reasons: there is an olde hacker that shall take order for to print them…. The first begins, Come tit me, come tat me, come throw a halter at me.
1607. [see TAT v.1].
1901. G. Douglas, House w. Green Shutters, v. 42. He’s a brother o’—eh, a brother o’—eh (tit-tit-titting on his brow)—oh, just a brother o’ Dru’cken Will Goudie o’ Auchterwheeze!
2. † To tit one in the teeth: to cast in one’s teeth, upbraid one with (obs.); hence to tit (simply), to twit, upbraid; intr. to scoff or jeer at.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., I. 147. Or that it should be tit in my teeth, that I had beene at the Court, and not seene the King. Ibid., II. 133. They would vpbraid me therewith…; Titting and flouting at me.
1629. J. M., trans. Fonseca’s Devout Contempl., 424. Notwithstanding all this Absalon titted him in the teeth, saying, Is this thy loue to thy friend?
1631. Celestina, XII. 146. Doe not tit mee in the teeth with these thy idle memorialls of my Mother.
1891. Hartland Gloss., Tit … to twit or teaze.
1904. Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v., To tit a person about anything.
