tetter

From Middle English teter, from Old English teter, tetr, tetra, from Proto-West Germanic *tetru, from Proto-Germanic *tetruz, *tetruhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dedru-, from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split, crack”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛtə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛtɚ/, /-ɾɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɛtə, -ɛtə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: tet‧ter

tetter (countable and uncountable, plural tetters)

1. (now rare) Any of various pustular skin conditions.
   • 1642 April, John Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC:

     heal this tetter of pedagogism that bespreads him

   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 3, member 2:

     Angelus Politianus had a tetter in his nose continually running, fulsome in company, yet no man so eloquent and pleasing in his works.

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick

   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     She works at St. Veronica’s hospital, lives nearby at the home of a Mrs. Quoad, a lady widowed long ago and since suffering a series of antiquated diseases—greensickness, tetter, kibes, purples, imposthumes and almonds in the ears, most recently a touch of scurvy.

tetter (third-person singular simple present tetters, present participle tettering, simple past and past participle tettered)

1. To affect with tetter.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     […] And all my smooth body, barked and tettered over.

   • 1987, James L Calderwood, Shakespeare & the Denial of Death‎, page 134:

     Most deaths are ugly, pathetic events, and Shakespeare must have seen his share of them in bodies tettered by the pox, made noseless by syphilis, or festering blackly from the plague.

   • 2009, Adam Thorpe, Hodd‎, published 2010, page 284:

     I bent down to touch him, for my revulsion had gone, and had been replaced by a great love and sorrow; and thus I wept upon his form, that was cold like a corpse's, its wasted brawn tettered all over with sores and encrustations that were not the botches and whelks of leprosy — though e'en then I would have embraced him, as St Hugh of Lincoln kissed many a leper for the good of his own spirit!

Corruption of potato.

tetter (plural tetters)

1. (Regional Dixieland vernacular, obsolete) Potato, or sweet potato root.
   • 1888, Charles Colcock Jones, Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast, Told in the Vernacular‎:

     Buh Sparruh biggin fur brag, an eh say: "Me tetter, him heap bigger den any me see. Me farruh befo me blan plant tetter, an him tetter bigger ner de calf er me leg. Me kin beat me farruh raise tetter

   • 1895, John G. Williams, "De Ole Plantation."‎:

     But mebbe you ax, is tetter wine("vine") a bad ting? No, I say, tetter wine is a good ting. You cant hab tetter widout de tetter wine. Dat wha' tetter wine fur? To mek tetter. But dat tetter wine dat ent mek tetter, dats a bad tetter wine kase e barren tetter wine.

tetter

1. present of tette