Now dial. Forms: 6 tuttay, -ey, 7 -ie, titty, 9 dial. totty, tutto, 7– tutty (also in comb. 9 tutti-). [Origin obscure: perh. orig. a nursery or children’s word. Cf. TUSSY, TUZZY-MUZZY.] A nosegay, a posy; a tuft or bunch of flowers.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, III. xxii. 344. At the highest of the stalkes groweth white flowers … ioyning one to another lyke a tuttay, or little nosegaye. Ibid., VI. xvi. 677. Two kindes of Heath, one … bearing his flowers in tutteys or tuftes.
1599. Minsheu, Span. Dict., A Tuttie, nosegay, or poesie, ramilléte de florés.
c. 1613. T. Campion, Bk. Ayres, I. I. ‘Jack & Joan they think no ill,’ iii. She can wreathes and tuttyes make.
1664. [see TUZZY-MUZZY].
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Tutty or Tuzzimuzzy, an old Word for a Nosegay.
a. 1800. Pegge, Suppl. Grose, Tutty, and Titty, a nosegay. Somersetsh.
1825. J. Jennings, Obs. Dial. W. Eng., 128. When spreng, adresst in tutties, Calls all tha birds abroad.
1904. 19th Cent., Sept., 233. I had a tutty—a nosegay,… zix times zo big as the biggest picklen cabbage.
b. Comb.: tutty men, tuttimen pl., at Hungerford, tithingmen who collect contributions on Hock Tuesday, carrying a tutty-pole, wreathed with flowers and ribbons; tutty-more: see quot. 1873.
1873. Williams & Jones, Somerset Gloss., Tutty, flower. Tutty-more, flower-root.
1893. Wilts Gloss., s.v. Totty, At Hungerford the tything-men are known as Tutti-men, and carry Tutti-poles, or wands wreathed with flowers.
1904. Daily News, 13 April, 11. The tutti-men sallied forth, armed with staves, adorned with handsome bouquets.
