sb. (adv.) Now dial. Also 9 titter-a-tauter, titter-cum-totter, etc.: see Eng. Dial. Dict. [Reduplication from stem of TITTER v.2 or TOTTER v.]
1. The pastime of see-saw. Also, a see-saw.
1530. Palsgr., 282/1. Tytter totter, a play for chyldre, balenchoeres.
1607. R. C[arew], trans. Estienne’s World of Wonders, 266. He played with a little boy at titter-totter.
1611. in Cotgr. s.v. Hausse.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., IV. i. § 21. We may add another pastime well known with us by the younger part of the community, and called Titter-Totter.
1846. Worcester, Tetter-totter (erroneously referred to Strutt).
1887. W. Rye, Norfolk Broads, xi. 95. We … tried quoits, and ‘tittem-a-tauter,’ as the natives call the pastime of see-saw.
† 2. One who totters or reels. Obs.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Titter-totter, who is upon the Reel, at every jog, or Blast of Wind.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Titter tatter, one reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch.
B. adv. In a tottering manner; unsteadily; also fig. hesitatingly, waveringly.
1725. Bailey, Erasm. Colloq., 35. Don’t stand titter, totter, first standing upon one Foot and then upon another.
1762. Churchill, Ghost Poems, 1767, II. 85. Having, as usual, said his pray’rs, Go titter, totter, to the stairs.
1828. Craven Gloss., Titter-totter, in a wavering state, on the balance.
1889. N. W. Linc. Gloss. (ed. 2), Titter-totter, (1) in a state of unstable equilibrium; (2) in hesitation of mind, or wavering.
Hence Titter-totter, etc. v., intr. to see-saw.
a. 1825. in Forby, Voc. E. Anglia.
1864. in Webster.
1897. Q. Rev., Jan., 146. They titter-cum-totter.
1901. Daily News, 12 Jan., 6/4. How few really know East Anglian dialect…. What does ‘tittymatauterin’ mean?… It simply means ‘see-sawing.’
1907. Black Cat, June, 25. [He] called back to the figure teter-tottering with the bowing of the log it rode.
