Now dial. Forms: 4–6 toty, 6 tottye, -ie, 6– totty. [app. f. tot-, as in totter and tottle + -Y.] Unsteady, shaky, tottery (physically or mentally); dizzy, dazed; tipsy, fuddled.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Reeve’s T., 333. Myn heed is toty of my swynk to nyght.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, III. 5752. Somme also so toty in her hede Þat þei … haue no foot for to stonde vp-riȝt.
1522. More, De Quat. Noviss., Wks. 97. What good can the great gluton do wt … his noll toty with drink?
1570. Levins, Manip., 112/11. Totty, vacillans, ebriolus, a.
1594. O. B., Quest. Profit. Concern., 23 b. I thought his head was but tottie.
1652. Season. Exp. Netherl., 10. Who proving totty, They thought to ballast him.
1819. Scott, Ivanhoe, xxxiii. I was somewhat totty when I received the good knight’s blow, or I had kept my ground.
1828. Craven Gloss., Totty, half drunk, tipsy.
1890. Doyle, White Company, xvii. Nay, nay, your head I can see is still totty.
b. Comb.: totty-grass, totter-grass, quaking-grass; totty-head, an imbecile; totty-headed a., light-headed, silly, frivolous; dizzy, giddy.
1901. Speaker, 20 April, 86/2. Who ever saw a child that did not love to gather primroses, horse daisies, or *totty-grass?
1680. Honest Hodge & Ralph, 28. Ral. But not such *Totty-heads yet, as to be led by the Nose by him.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, *Totty-headed, Giddy-headed, Hare-brain’d.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Totty, totty-headed, dizzy. Particularly from the effect of too much drink.
