[f. as prec. + -ER1.] One who abstains (esp. one who pledges himself to abstain) from the use of any intoxicating liquor; a total abstainer.
1834. Preston Temp. Adv., Aug., 57/2. What is the whole matter in dispute betwixt the moderates and the tee-totallers?
1835. (Jan. 23) E. C. Delavan, Lett., in Life of J. Livesey, I. p. cxii. We [in U.S.] begin to feel the influence of your noble example. Our people by thousands are becoming tee-totallers.
1836. (title) Brief Sketch of the Life of Charles Watson, a Tee-Totaller in Liverpool.
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. III. 182. Massachusetts is now divided into two very strange political parties, to wit, the topers and the tee-totallers.
1842. The Struggle, No. 16, 3/1. I don’t like to see … Tee-totalers drinking peppermint at a public house.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 268. The 84th Regiment … numbered many teetotallers.
Hence Teetotalleress nonce-wd., female teetotaller.
1854. Thackeray, J. Leech’s Pict. Life & Char. Wks. 1900, XIII. 484. And there was George [Cruikshank] … handing some teetotaleresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being administered.
1883. Sat. Rev., LV., 17 Feb., 222/2. Earnest Madement … marries Emmeline Playfair, the golden-haired teetotalleress.
