Also -back. A variant of STICKLEBACK, of childish origin. Hence Tittlebatian a. nonce-wd., pertaining to tittlebats.

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1820.  Keats & Hunt, K.’s Wks. (1889), III. 34. They … follow the fish into cool corners, and say millions of ‘My eyes!’ at ‘tittle-bats.’

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1837.  Dickens, Pickw., i. There sat the man who had … agitated the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats. Ibid. He had felt some pride when he presented his Tittlebatian Theory to the world.

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1844.  Thackeray, Greenwich Whitebait, Misc. Ess. (1885), 430. A fresh dish of tittlebacks or gudgeons.

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1869.  H. S. Leigh, Carols of Cockayne, 120.

        In this brook that flows lazily by
  I believe that one tittlebat dwells,
For I saw something jump at a fly
  As I lay here and long’d for Bow Bells.

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