tit n.2
1. a breast, usu. a woman’s; usu. in pl.; thus titless adj.
Fast Man 10:1 n.p.: TIT BITS FOR GENTLEMEN. Eight racy plates, a la Francaise, price 1s. SPICE NUTS. A charming collection of eight delicious pictures, especially adapted for Bachelors' Parties, price 1s. | ||
in Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 28: My scout party met up with four titless half-breed girls. | ||
‘The Queen & Louise’ in | (1979) 190: You may whimper a bit, but on no account shit / Though he mangles your tits to a jelly.||
‘The Ball of Kirriemuir’ in | (1979) 15: Missus McGinty she was there / And had us all in fits / Diving off the mantelpiece / And bouncing on her tits.||
in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 121: Tickle my tits and belly, / Smell my slimey slough. | ||
Sport (Adelaide) 3 Aug. 14/4: They Say [...] That G.F. has sworn off Angel’s Tits. | ||
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 139: Like a babby takes to his mammy’s tit. | ‘The Black Dudeen’||
in Limerick (1953) 23: I asked as I tickled her tit / If she thought that my big thing would fit. | ||
(con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 45: Mademoiselle, she bought a cow, Parley-voo / To milk the brute she didn’t know how, Parley-voo, / She pulled the tail instead of the tit. | ||
(ref. to 1868) Amer. Madam (1981) 63: Me all scared and needing comfort like a baby needs a tit to suck. | ||
Tramp and Other Stories 189: When she gets tits as big as Jo’s you won’t be able to keep her away. | ||
(con. 1944) Naked and Dead 22: Little-tit librarian, he would spit on her now. | ||
Ginger Man (1958) 165: I want a woman with awful big tits and arse. Biggest tits and arse in whoredom. | ||
(con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 174: I was thinking of a set of tits. | ||
Absolute Beginners 48: Like horrible titts hanging from a lean old sow. | ||
All Night Stand 25: I asked who Sue was. ‘The one with the big tits.’. | ||
Whoreson [context 1950s] 21: I grabbed her and felt where her tits should have been. | ||
Family Arsenal 92: I’m not much to look at. My tits don’t stick out. | ||
Honourable Schoolboy 388: [of a man] ‘Take those Commie stars off your tits.’. | ||
Aussie Bull 55: Do you know how to titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot! | ||
Real Thing 162: [of the male chest] He was all puffed-up tits and biceps squeezed into a white T-shirt. | ||
Skin Tight 32: I did a Penthouse tryout and the photog makes some crack about my tits. | ||
(con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 7: [T]elling the cheese ’n’ kisses and tin lids that he was leaving them for true love with a big pair of tits. | ||
(con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 40: You ever see a Chinese broad with such a beautiful set of tits? | ||
Happy Like Murderers 59: And then he said, ‘What’s her tits like?’. | ||
Indep. on Sun. Rev. 23 Jan. 5: If you’ve got tits, you’re not doing it right. | ||
Grits 148: [of a man] Ah can feel me tits jigglun abou’ undurr me shurrt an ah doan like ut. | ||
Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 71: You’ve been looking at my tits all night, Frankie. They’re nice, aren’t they? | ||
Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘Grow some tits and I might be interested’. | ||
Life 68: Some lovely old fat Sidcup lady with her clothes off - oooh way hay tits! | ||
Glorious Heresies 29: [S]he noticed he was staring at her tits. | ||
Bloody January 160: ‘[T]he whole time I was trying to explain what a feminist was you were staring at my tits?’. | ||
Good Girl Stripped Bare 18: Teenage boys are obsessed with tits. | ||
Bobby March Will Live Forever 140: ‘Donny wasn’t a girl, put it that way. Didn’t have tits to stare at, did he?’. | ||
Braywatch 267: I can see a lot of tit. |
2. the nipple.
Family Connections 45: A pair of beautiful bubbies with bright red tits. | ||
Oz 3 2/4: Swinging, separated breasts surmounted with ripe, red tits. | ||
Street Players 35: Your tit is as hard as a rock. | ||
Vinnie Got Blown Away 143: Undid my shirt kissed my chest, did it again stomach and shoulders, bit my tits. |
3. (1910s, Aus.) a cow’s udder.
Sport (Adelaide) 20 Mar. 5/4: Gertie W you should find out who the ‘Sport’ reporter is before you talk about pulling his his nose. You couldn’t pull a cow’s tit . |
4. (orig. milit.) anything considered to resemble a breast or, more often, the nipple, e.g. a button or a small switch etc.
(con. WWI) Goodbye to All That (1960) 164: A new gas-helmet, popularly known as ‘the goggle-eyed booger with the tit.’. | ||
Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 152: When you press the tit a flash-bomb goes off at the same time. | ||
Steptoe and Son [TV script] I haven’t blown the balloons up [...] Me lungs aren’t what they used to be. I can’t even inflate the tit on the end of the sausage ones. | ‘Christmas 1973’||
Guardian 25 Jan. 18: It’s just a big tit on the landscape built by wanky tossers. |
5. (also nipple) in fig. use, something on which one ‘feeds’, e.g. a hand-out, a government grant [suggests the simplicity of a child’s finding its mother’s breast].
Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1959) 169: You got the right idea, boy: stay on the government tit. | ||
Proud Highway (1997) 423: My congratulations on your success with the Great Nipple [money]. | letter 25 Nov. in||
Friends of Eddie Coyle 58: But I’m on the government tit, too. | ||
(con. c.1970) Phantom Blooper 27: You the little-boy king of Fat City in Viet Nam, you livin’ off the tit. | ||
Clockers 38: Whatever township, city or political tit that had been their point of origin. |
6. something extremely simple and usu. rewarding, esp. a criminal scheme.
CUSS 210: Tit [...] Easy course. | et al.||
Union Dues (1978) 380: You’re doin the right thing, Hunt. That steel, that’s a tit. | ||
(con. 1960) My Secret Hist. (1990) 116: I know where you can make an easy twenty-five [...] It’s a tit. |
7. (also bluetit) an English police helmet [resemblance].
OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 (blue...) tit n. Alternate name for a British Policeman’s helmet. f. pointy shape with nipple like protruberance on top. |
8. (N.Z. prison) a hypodermic syringe.
Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 190/2: tit n. a hypodermic syringe and needle. |
9. (Aus.) in fig. use, a sorce of profit.
(con. 1943) Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘[F]ifty smackers for two days diggin’ . . . and there’s more in the tit’. |
In derivatives
(US) a large amount.
(con. 1960s) Wanderers 38: ‘You know how much that fat fuck Lipschitz takes in a year? A week? A day?’ [...] ‘I don't know either, but I betcha it’s a titload,’ Lenny said’. |
(US) featuring bare-breasted women; having attractive breasts.
Close Quarters (1987) 139: His nose in one of those titsy, he-man pulp magazines. | ||
Paco’s Story (1987) 43: One of those waxy-looking, titsy little Kewpie-doll air freshners. |
In compounds
see tits and ass n.
1. a brassiere.
Sl. and Euph. | ||
Madwoman’s Underclothes 102: On horseback, even I wear a tit-bag. |
2. a term of abuse.
Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren 189: In Liverpool [...] they name him a ‘tit-bag.’. | ||
posting at groups.google.co.uk 1 Aug. 🌐 You complete and utter headfucked tit-bag. |
see separate entries.
1. a general term of abuse.
London Fields 446: Just a kid. In a uniform. Fucking tithead. | ||
Powder 5: Slipped up there, tithead. |
2. a weakling.
Awaydays 107: Our damien. He’s only a little tithead. No threat to no one. |
3. an English policeman.
Lowspeak. | ||
OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 tit-head n. derog. rude name for a policeman f. their hats which are a pointy shape with nipple like protruberance on top circa. | ||
Bad Traffic 148: She was escorting two real policemen [...] They had flat hats, which perhaps meant they were a higher rank than your usual tithead. |
1. (US police, also teat job) a very easy, stress-free task.
Walking the Beat 135: Paul had no rabbis. He had no hooks. He had nothing. This meant he would never get a ‘tit’ job. When one has a cushy assignment the other cops refer to him as being ‘on the tit’ or ‘milking the tit’. | ||
Patrolman 179: The fact that I had decided to leave, giving up my duties in the street for a ‘teat job’ in the station house, did not prevent me from functioning as a police officer. | ||
Vice Cop 39: ‘I was in Traffic, Gussman’s chauffeur, another tit-job’. |
2. see boob job under boob n.3
(US) a womanizer.
Maledicta 1 (Summer) 10: One was once insulted by being accused of [...] being [...] a chippy-chaser, a cunt-hound, [...] or even a tit-kisser, which really just means a seducer. |
a flat-chested woman.
Not as a Stranger 139: ‘The fat lady and the titless wonder!’. | ||
Staircase 35: [A] snooty Florist set up by her daddy and known as the Titless Wonder;. | ||
Same Old Grind 124: ‘You got to be a titless wonder to be a fashion model’. | ||
DSUE (8th edn) 1240: [...] since ca. 1930. | ||
Cat’s Eye (1989) 347: A woman artist can get admired by them only as a sideline, a sort of freaky exception. ‘Titless wonders,’ says Jody. |
a man who finds a woman’s breasts her most appealing feature; as opposed to an ass-man under ass n.
(con. 1930s) Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968) 260: ‘Why don’t she take off the top part and give a look at her knockers?’ ‘You got one track onna mind, Joe. Maybe everyone else ain’t such a big tit man as you.’. | ||
The Same Old Grind 117: ‘Nobody here’s going to bite you, except maybe Walter the Tit Man’. | ||
Cutter and Bone (2001) 195: ‘Yeah, they’re pretty great [...] All thirty-four inches.’ ‘I’m not a tits man.’. | ||
It (1987) 113: She had [...] the best set of tits he had ever seen. Tom Rogan was a tit-man, always had been. | ||
Guardian 27 Nov. 25/8: Was not Rubens a Tit and Bum man? | ||
What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] He’s a tit man. I don’t mind a good set of boobs. And evidently neither does Derryn. | ‘Take Derryn Hinch...Please’ in||
Pugilist at Rest 131: J.Z. was a tit man and [...] his big bitch was the fact that my mother breast-fed me, causing hers to soften up. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 213: tits and bums man One who trumpets the attractiveness of women with prominent breasts and buttocks. |
(Aus.) the caressing of a woman’s breasts.
Puberty Blues 23: He’d lead you outside for a pash on the front fence, or [...] a ‘tit-off’ down the other end of the hall. |
a brassiere.
Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 98 Oct. 28: tit pants n. A bra. |
(N.Z.) of a woman, proud of one’s breasts.
Numbers five May 16: This is no question to obsess his heart while juke box melodies can graph a tit-proud blonde to tickle up desire. |
(N.Z.) a dairy farmer.
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
see under tits and ass.
see separate entries.
see tits and ass n.
totally involved with, with an excessive amount of.
Plainclothes Naked (2002) 109: He was tits-deep in a criminal venture — protecting Tina made him an accessory to murder. |
a burlesque or striptease show.
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 11: Dentists here for the convention browsed in search of the beatniks between tit shows. | ||
Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 81: We’ll protect their bit of trade, / The hard porn and tit shows. | East in||
Hooligans (2003) 45: You stand out like a blind man at a tit show. |
see tit man
(S.Afr.) the hands, not necessarily in a sexual context.
OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 tit spanners n. hands ‘Keep your tit spanners off my lunch!’. |
(US) a weak, babyish person.
End as a Man (1952) 73: The reason is you’re a yellow tit-sucker. |
1. an act of intercourse in which the man rubs his penis between the woman’s breasts; cite 2012 refers to the woman’s rubbing her breasts on the man’s head .
🌐 titwank The act of pleasuring oneself by thrusting the erect member between a generous pair of bristols. Typically concludes with the delivery of a pearl necklace. Phwoaar! She’s got a shirtfull. I’d love a good titwank in those. | posting at Urban Dict. 10 Apr. 2003||
Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 90: I managed to give one of the lad’s heads a slight tit-wank. |
2. a general term of abuse.
🌐 titwank a.k.a. Spud. Defining the utmost stupidity and worthlessness of someone, also used as a generic pronound [sic] to insult someone in the aforementionned known-as. Originally mentionned by ‘Banzai.’ You’re welcome titwank. Fuck off, titwank. | Urban Dict.
In phrases
used to describe a woman who capitalizes on her physical charms, esp. her smile and (presumably) large breasts, to make up for the lack of more subtle attractions; sometimes expanded by ...like a third-row chorus-girl.
Sun. Mirror n.p.: I was sharing the slot with a very sexy looking black cabaret artiste. All tits and teeth and a lousy voice. | ||
DSUE (8th edn) 15/1: since ca. 1910. | ||
Stage (London) 9 Mar. 27/6: The beginning of her career when women were expected to be ‘all tits and teeth’. | ||
www.filethirteen.com 🌐 Denise Richards is all tits. And teeth. She has nothing else to offer here. Her performance is laughable. | ||
Sydney Morning Herald 18 Aug. n.p.: And then there is Rose, the ghastly Rose. I met her once, in a radio studio [...] She came at me all tits and teeth, like a Manila bar girl. |
1. a woman regarded as a sex object.
Two Gentlemen Sharing 201: Nice bit of tit. Who is she? | ||
Magog 39: Nice bit of tit, her. Got it made, ain't you, cocko? | ||
DSUE (8th edn) 84/2: since ca. 1920. | ||
Vinnie Got Blown Away 30: That Noreen, not just the most beautiful bit of tit you ever saw, body like Whitney Houston. | ||
Glue 33: Thir is a barry bit ay tit thair awright. |
2. sexual intercourse.
DSUE (8th edn) 84/2: since ca. 1920. |
(US) a woman with large breasts.
Come Monday Morning 63: If she didn’t show that bushel ’a tits down at the end would do. |
(N.Z.) the greatest possible effort.
Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 47/1: full tit maximum effort, usually from a car; eg ‘I gave her full tit, man, and we were still only doin’ 70.’. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
(US) to be upset, to be in a frightening situation (cf. get one’s knickers in a twist under knickers n.).
With Hooves of Brass 63: ‘Gawd! I’ve never laughed so much since Aunt Katie got her tit in the mangle!’. | ||
Tracks (Aus.) Oct. 3: We really got our tits in a twist when we read about you DY locals owning the point [Moore 1993]. | ||
Outside In I i: Now don’t get your tits in a tangle. | ||
Up the Cross 17: ‘Don’t get your walters [i.e walter mittys = titties] in a tangle’. | (con. 1959)||
(con. 1968) Citadel (1989) 36: Figures them Doggies would get their tits in a wringer. | ||
Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 one’s tits in a knot be upset, used as a complement of ‘get’, ‘have’, ‘keep, etc.: ‘John got his tits in a knot and he kept them there.’. | ||
(con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 20: Wait now — don’t get your tits in a twist. | ||
Charlie Opera 3: You ever hear of getting your tit in a ringer [...] Because that’s what this could be like. | ||
Easy Money 159: ‘No need to get your tits in a tangle.’ ‘You know I hate you calling him a wop,’ she snapped. |
to act in an uninhibited manner; usu. of a woman, but not necessarily so.
Yes We have No 186: She [...] really taught me to get my tits out. | ||
Indep. 21 June 3: We drank 16 bottles of champagne last year [...] And then a girl got her tits out for us. |
to infuriate, to annoy.
Spring in Tartarus 327: It isn’t you, Holy Jesus, that I’m rorting at. But honestly, this sort of tommy just gets on my teats. | ||
Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 14: tit, get on someone’s: To annoy or anger a person. | ||
Jimmy Brockett 121: Her mother picked on Sadie the whole time. [...] It got on my tit. | ||
Way of Life 143: You fair get on my tits. | ||
Teachers (1962) 188: They get on my tit-ends, they do, straight. | ||
Buttons 47: I don’t mind the Old Testament so much [...] but the New Testament gets on my tits. | ||
Family Arsenal 25: Now get off my tits. | ||
Educating Rita I iii: This Forster, honest to God he doesn’t half get on my tits. | ||
Observer Mag. 31 Oct. 21: They’re always trying to make contact, and it gets on my tits. | ||
Soothing Music for Stray Cats 13: The whole thing had been getting on Trudy’s tits. | ||
(con. 1980s) Skagboys 336: I gotta say that he’s getting right on my farking tits. | ||
Dead Man’s Trousers [20]: — I can’t do this! Euan pleads in that girly voice that is getting on my tits. |
of a (young) man, to caress a girl’s breasts.
Dead Man’s Trousers 43: He got the tit from a cousin’s visiting friend. |
(Can.) to find oneself in trouble, in an unpleasant situation.
DSUE (8th edn) 1240: [...] low Can.: since ca. 1920. |
(US) to be in difficulties, to be foolish.
From Here to Eternity (1998) 859: I aint had so much fun since grandmaw got her tit caught in the wringer. | ||
And Save Them for Pallbearers 179: ’Don’t get your tit caught in a wringer.’ ‘Screw you; come back after chow’ . | ||
Friends of Eddie Coyle 70: He’s got this kind of a tense expression [...] like he thinks maybe he’s got his tit caught in the wringer. | ||
All the President’s Men (1974) 105: All that crap, you’re putting it in the paper? It’s all been denied. Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published. | to Carl Bernstein 31 May in Bernstein & Woodward||
Wizard of La-La Land (1999) 194: You watch it or your tit’s going to be in the wringer. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 99: haven’t laughed so much since Granny got her tit caught in the wringer Grossly amused. |
(US) to be patient.
Muzukuru 28: ‘Hell, keep your tits tied on,’ I chune her. | ||
Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 one’s tits on (prepositional phrase, a small clause; idiom). be patient. Used as a complement of ‘keep, etc.: ‘John kept his tits on.’ . | ||
White Teeth n.p.: ‘There’s shoes back here that need your attention,’ came a voice from the store room. ‘Keep your tits on,’ said Neena. |
(UK black) to run errands and perform small tasks.
in Living Dangerously 169: Aged nine, my little nephew is lickin’ tits. |
living in luxury or ease, overly protected.
Walking the Beat 135: Paul had no rabbis. He had no hooks. He had nothing. This meant he would never get a ‘tit’ job. When one has a cushy assignment the other cops refer to him as being ‘on the tit’ or ‘milking the tit’. | ||
Memphis-Nam-Sweden (1997) 94: My buddies were getting shot up in the Nam while these dudes are living off the tit in Japan. | ||
Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 59: ‘[N]early all the guys who came on the job with me had gone on to greener pastures. Some had become sergeants [...] others were milking the tit in special details’. | ||
🌐 Unfortunately there are too many people living off the tit of the government that if that were to happen would just resort to crime or die. | ‘Talk to the Station’ WNLI FM
not to care in the slightest.
(con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 22: Who would give a fish’s tit about you. | ||
(con. 1950) Band of Brothers 31: I don’t give a rat’s tit that he’s black. | ||
(con. 1940s) Confessions 105: I don’t give a fish’s tit what she is. | ||
Fatal Last Words n.p.: If the bosses say that my investigation has effectively become part of yours [...] I do not give a fish’s tit. | ||
Kilburn Social Club 382: You might not give a fish’s tit about football's preening layabouts. |
1. intoxicated by drugs.
Faggots 247: Winnie Heinz — in his half-naked Indian costume and further angel-dusted out of his tits. | ||
Spin Apr. 84/1: Cook— better known as Fatboy Slim— is also ‘off his tits,’ having knocked back a naughty pill of Ecstasy just before going onstage. | ||
PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 149: The dude was coked off his tits. | ||
Acid Alex 164: The way to smoke a white pipe is to just hit it once as hard as possible and hold it. And hold it. And rush off your tits. | ||
Intractable [ebook] Haley gave me a joint. That night I got stoned off my tits. | ||
Butcher, Baler, Candlestick Maker 43: A guy I met - cute but off his tits on coke - suggested group sex. | ||
Thrill City [ebook] Call back when you’ve straightened out. Yes you are, you’re off your tits. |
2. very drunk.
Reach 18: Last night, I was absolutely off my tits at that awful cocktail thing at Clare. | ||
Dead Long Enough 9: Samuel Pepys had, according to his diary, a quick Sherman during the sermon while off his tits on sherry. | ||
PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 26: It could have been anything [...] because I was off my tits. | ||
Peepshow [ebook] Chloe and me had been rampaging around, off our tits. | ||
Deadly Friends 257: Two or three sips and he was off his tits, one glass and he was out cold. | ||
Finders Keepers (2016) 75: He could see himself in a bar [...] drunk off his tits. |
3. an intensifier, meaning extremely bored.
What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Frank Hardy summed up the America’s Cup in a few succinct words: ‘The new rich, fighting the old rich, and boring the tits off the poor.’. | ‘Tall Poppies Deserve Shrift’ in||
Salesman 309: I was bored outta me tits. | ||
Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 98: I’m bored off my tits at this stage. | ||
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 25: I was bored off my tits. |
a general intensifer.
Fatty 239: ‘He was screaming and shouting his tits off if someone dropped the ball’. | ||
Grits 437: Buzzin me tits off, legs fucked from dancin awl night, drums still bangin in me ears. | ||
Gayle 93/2: scream your tits off v. have a good time (It was the best party ever. We screamed our tits off). | ||
Apples (2023) 104: I’m tripping my tits off. Gaz gave us these pills. | ||
Kill Your Friends (2009) 47: ‘How’s the album coming?’ [...] ‘It’s gonna blow your fucking tits off’. | ||
‘Suicide Chump’ in ThugLit July [ebook] ‘If I still did coke, I’d be laughing my tits off’. | ||
Good Girl Stripped Bare 29: The previous week I’d frozen my tits off after she confisacted my only cardie. |
(US campus) pursuing, lit. or fig, thus being annoying.
Sl. U. 31: be on my tit to be persistently pursuing me (especially sexually; used by a female speaker). |
feeling angry, aggrieved.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 136: How do you think those guys feel? I been on the hind tit myself. |
(Aus./US) in some form of dependency.
Walking the Beat 135: Paul had no rabbis. He had no hooks. He had nothing. This meant he would never get a ‘tit’ job. When one has a cushy assignment the other cops refer to him as being ‘on the tit’ or ‘milking the tit’. | ||
Vanished Brass 119: [H]eadquarters was the breast at which career cops nursed. The field men sneered at the headquarters men, said they were On the Tit. | ||
Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] I’m a late starter, still got two kids on the tit. |
(Aus./N.Z.) to tease.
For the Rest of Our Lives 331: Don’t get knotted, Franky boy. I’m just pulling your tit. | ||
Gun in My Hand 194: Is Croxley going the same way? Or is he pulling my tit? | ||
(con. 1940s) Andy 42: By Saint Peter the Patron Saint of Service Police may the breath of hell reach up and smite me if I pull thy tit. | ||
Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 88/2: pull someone’s tit to make a fool of or tease. | ||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
(Aus.) to discomfit, to embarrass, to irritate someone.
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 213: tits in a tangle In difficulty [...] Refers to the problems associated with the clothes mangle attached to washing machines in the days before spin-drying. ANZ. |
a sexually attractive woman.
Choirboys (1976) 240: Take a look at the set of tits works the perfume counter [...] Dynamite! |
1. to be inferior, to take a secondary role; thus hind tit n., bad, unfair treatment.
‘Fifth Ozark Word List’ in AS XIII:4 Dec. 314/2: suck the hind tit v.phr. To get the worst of everything. | ||
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 130: ‘What’s going on, Ray?’ he asked. ‘The same thing that’s been going on for years. We’re still sucking the hind tit.’. | ||
From Here to Eternity (1998) 218: That sort of leaves you suckin hind tit [...] Don’t it? | ||
Augie March (1996) 158: I seen she’s been trying to make you suck hind titty. But the thing is why you let her. | ||
Sweet Ride 170: Go suck hind tit. | ||
Demon (1979) 100: I [...] aint to be sucking hind tit around here. Im on my way. | ||
(con. 1970) Meditations in Green (1985) 155: ‘I don’t know,’ said Captain Miller to Claypool. ‘This was where you were supposed to strut your stuff [...] And us sucking hind tit on body count.’. | ||
You Gotta Play Hurt 320: [I]t just goes to show you, Stubby said, how a school like TCU has to suck hind tit when it comes to national publicity. | ||
News-Daze 27: If you get any more crap from the agencies, tell them they'll be sucking hind tit when it comes to preferential buys this fall. | ||
Blood on the Bluegrass 93: As raw recruits, they would be left sucking hind tit. |
2. to curry favour.
(con. 1920s) South of Heaven (1994) 204: I told him he could go suck hind titty from a tumblebug. | ||
G.Rat on Fire (1982) 3: He is sucking every minority and majority hind tit he can find. |
(US) something comforting, someone desirable; thus as term of address.
Letters to James Joyce (1968) 25: Also, as you see, the S.S. is disposed in your favour IF you have any sugar tits for ’em. | letter 14 Feb. in Read||
Somebody in Boots 118: I’ll give you a nice job. Easy. Soft. You know? Soft as sugar-titty. You like sugar-titty, sonny? | ||
Seeds of Man (1995) 270: I’m a-itcherin’ my pants off ta chew chaw on that there little ole sugar tit Rinny. | ||
(con. 1940s) Out of the Burning (1961) 28: ’Bout time you got off your mother’s sugar tit. Anybody socks you, sock him back twice as hard. | ||
Garden of Sand (1981) 319: She’ll give you some sugar-tit and tell you what a great big boy you are. | ||
Boy from County Hell 142: ‘Well, sugar tits, he went to a honky tonk much like this one. It was a real shit hole’. |
a male-to-female term of affection.
Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 98 Oct. 27: sweet tits n. Affectionate male term of endearment for females. ‘Good-night, good-night! / Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good-night until it be morrow, sweet tits’, (from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare). |
(Aus.) to caress a woman’s breasts.
Puberty Blues 24: At South Cronulla we’d let the boys ‘tit-us-off’ and occasionally get a hand down our pants. |
(US) pertaining to teenage love and sex.
Dict. of Invective (1991) 388: Since added to with such common phrases as [...] tits and zits, having to do with the passion of teenagers. |
something utterly useless; usu. in phr. no more use than tits on a bull etc (cf. useless as tits on a nun ).
Folk-Say 107: You’re just as useless as tits on a boar hog. | ||
Piper Tomkins 119: By God, neither of them ever done me any more good than the tits on a boar hog! | ||
As I Was Young and Easy 78: The Doc saying how dogs was as worthless as tits on a boar hog. The Doc didn’t like dogs. | ||
Harm’s Way 191: When my class at Harvard got together at a reunion, you’d be surprised how many fellows felt the same way. Useless as tits on a boar hog. | ||
Reruns 55: The Champ don’t think you’re worth tits on a boar hog, Kid. | ||
(con. 1969) Dispatches 6: ‘Didn’t you ever meet a reporter before?’ I asked him. ‘Tits on a bull,’ he said. ‘Nothing personal.’. | ||
(con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 83: ‘Thaht weapon goan get so heavy you’re goan cuss it like tits on a bull.’. | ||
You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) That german shepherd was about as much use as tits on a bull: . | ||
Q Clearance 39: Son, that’s about as much use to me as tits on a canary. | ||
Jailing of Cecelia Capture 47: ‘Useless as tits on a boar!’ And if she tried to get away she would be grabbed and pulled back. | ||
et al. Red Dust and Broadsides 186: And don’t stand there useless as the tits on a boar hog. | ||
Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘He was clueless, useless as tits on a bull’. | ||
Savage Factory 22: These types of people are as useless as tits on a boar hog. | ||
Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] Johnny No Nuts was as useless as tits on a fish. | ||
Swollen Red Sun 92: ‘You’re about as a worthless as titties on a catfish’. | ||
Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 He is a reader of old westerns and an aficionado of Civil War reenactments. He uses words like ‘gadzooks’ and phrases like ‘useful as tits on a boar hog’. |
(N.Z.) belly-pickled pork on toast.
(ref. to c.1916) in | I’m Ninety-five 29: We’d make dumplings, too, fried up in the camp oven. Buggers afloat we called them... And what did we call the poached eggs? A pair of bastards on a raft, and we’d have tits on toast – belly pickled pork on toast. I still use those old names; everyone laughs at me.||
Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 214: tits on toast A serving on toast of bellypork, which usually has the nipples attached. |
(US) exceptional.
Bluesky 5 Apr. 🌐 I read Jane Flett's upcoming Freakslaw [...] and it is a tits-out banger. I loved it. [...] It's so freaking good. |
(orig. Can. prison) dead, i.e. laid out on one’s back; thus in fig. use, ruined, destroyed; esp. in phr. go/gone tits-up.
Finnegan’s Week 146: Croaked. All the ants went tits-up. | ||
Stump 226: I’m talkin about when a job goes tits up. When [...] yeh can’t get the fuckin thing sorted. | ||
Indep. 16 May 30/6: Whose arse is it on the line if the whole thing goes tits up? | ||
[blog] 3 Dec. But culturally nourishing as though this may sound, just recently it’s all started to go tits-up. | ||
(con. 1980s) Skagboys 190: That sort ay unselective breedin dilutes the fortitude ay a race. The morals go tits up. | ||
Finders Keepers (2016) 114: The investments [...] had gone tits-up. | ||
Times 11 June 🌐 ‘From the manifesto on, it [i.e. the Tory campaign] was all tits up,’ said a seasoned Tory operative. | ||
Good Girl Stripped Bare 23: Worrying whether I’ll go tits-up on the slippery studio floor. | ||
Widespread Panic 240: He’ll go tits up in some sort of embarrassing leather-bar altercation. | ||
Secret Hours 248: ‘Why the play-acting?’ ‘Because the job’s going tits up, that’s why’. |
to fondle a woman’s breasts.
Adolescent Boys of East London (1969) 55: They would often try to move on from kissing to sexual play; as they put it, they ‘titted a girl up.’. |
completely; esp. in ripped to the tits under ripped adj.1
Queens’ Vernacular 198: stoned to the tit[s] very intoxicated from drugs, booze, you name it (you take it) [...] to the tits [...] a lot, utmost. | ||
Permanent Midnight 263: I was [...] jacked to the tits. | ||
Perv (2001) 311: I am bummed! [...] I am bummed to the tits. | ||
(con. 1972) Circle of Six 12: [M]en in Kevlar helmets and flak-jackets, all strapped to the tits with fully automatic carbines and shotguns. |
(US/Aus.) utterly useless (cf. tits on a bull ).
Folk-Say 107: You’re just as useless as tits on a boar hog. | ‘Song of the Pipeline’ in Botkin||
‘The Castration of the Strawberry Roan’ in Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 95: When all of a sudden he lands on all four, / That bastard’s as useless as tits on a boar. | ||
Down in the Holler 175: Useless as tits on a boar hog is another common expression of futility. | ||
Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words 73: Something useless or superfluous [...] worthless as tits on a hog. | ||
Legs of the Lame 95: [H]e was probably as useless as tits on a nun to any woman in bed. | ||
Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 118/1: useless as a tit on a hand / as a gumdigger’s dog very useless. | ||
Plays Int’l 6 45: But if you don't know how to sell it , talent is about as much good as tits on a nun. | ||
Lingo 88: Bodily and mental afflictions, real, imagined or fervently wished, also feature strongly in Lingo. One can [...] have a face like a busted sandshoe; be useless as tits on a nun. | ||
Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 As useless as tits on a bull. | ||
Mutilated [ebook] That information was, as Daniel put it, ‘As worthless as tits on a nun’. | ||
(ed.) Long Island Noir 264: Samsonite luggage that [...] had about as much utility for his wife as tits on a nun. |
In exclamations
a semi-euph. var. on my arse! under arse n.
Ginger Man (1958) 357: ‘Surely you’re joking.’ ‘Joking, me tit.’. | ||
Shiralee 179: ‘Booze me tit!’ Macauley snapped. | ||
Jocks 169: STENGEL: What kind of hours you been keeping, Kanehl? KANEHL: Good hours, Case. STENGEL: Good hours my tit. |