ticklish, easily disturbed, Chapman, Widow’s Tears, ii. 2 (Arsace).
tick-tack, a complicated kind of backgammon, played both with men and pegs; for rules, see the Compleat Gamester. Meas. for M. i. 2. 196; B. Jonson, Every Man in Hum. iii. 3 (Kiteley). Du. tiktak. tick-tack; ‘tiktakbörd, tick-tack-tables, backgammon tables’ (Sewel); cp. G. tricktrack, backgammon.
tiddle, to pet, to spoil; said of parents and children; ‘My parents did tiddle me’, Nice Wanton, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 173. Hence tidlings, pets, spoilt children, id., 164. In prov. use in Berks., meaning to tend carefully; to bring up a young animal by hand (EDD.).
tie-dog, a bandog; a fierce dog who has to be tied up. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Diogenes, § 140. See Nares.
tiego, a dizziness in the head. Massinger, A Very Woman, iv. 3 (Borachia). The expression is put into the mouth of an ignorant woman; it seems to represent ’tigo, short for Lat. vertigo.
tiffany, a kind of thin transparent silk; also a gauze muslin. Fletcher, Noble Gentleman, i. 1 (Marine); Shirley, Witty Fair One, ii. 1 (Treedle). Apparently the same word as Tiffany, a name for the festival of the Epiphany. OF. Tiphanie (Godefroy), Eccles. L. Theophania, Eccles. Gk. Θεοφάνεια, the Manifestation of God. See Ducange (s.v. Theophania).
tight, tite. Of a ship: water-tight; ‘Twelve tite Gallies’, Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 381; competent, capable; vigorous, stout, Ant. and Cl. iv. 4. 16; neat, trim, carefully dressed, ‘But you look so bright, And are dress’d so tight’, Farquhar, Beaux Strat. i. 1. In prov. use in various senses in all parts of the English-speaking world: e.g. in good health, sound, vigorous (E. Anglia); neat, trim (Scotland); see EDD. See [tith].
tight, pt. t., tied, Spenser, F. Q. vi. 12. 34.
tiller, in archery, the wooden beam which is grooved for reception of the arrow, or drilled for the bolt; ‘The beanie or tiller (of a balista)’, Holland, Amm. Marcell. 221 (NED.); ‘Arbrier, the tillar of a crosse-bow’, Cotgrave; a stock or shaft fixed to a long-bow to admit of its being used as a cross-bow, for greater precision of aim, Beaumont and Fl., Philaster, ii. 2 (Galatea); a bow fitted with a tiller, id., Scornful Lady, v. 1 (Elder Loveless); tiller-bow, a cross-bow, see Roberts, English Bowman (ed. 1801, p. 261), quoted by Croft (Sir T. Elyot, Governour, i. 297); tillering, the putting of a bow upon a tiller, Ascham, Toxophilus, 114. OF. telier (tellier), the wooden beam of a cross-bow, orig. a weaver’s beam (Godefroy), Mod. L. telarium (Ducange), L. tela, a web.
tilly-vally, an exclamation of contempt at what has been said, like our ‘nonsense!’ Twelfth Nt. ii. 3. 83; Tilly-fally, 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 90. Tille valle, Tille vallee!, an exclamation used by Mrs. Alice More, not liking her husband’s question, ‘Is not this house (in the Tower) as nighe heaven as myne owne (at Chelsea)?’, see Life of Sir T. More, by W. Roper (More’s Utopia, ed. Lumby, p. xlv).