Now dial. or colloq. Forms: 4–7 title, 5 tytyll, 6 tytle, tyttle, 8– tittle. [Of obscure origin; hardly known before 1400; app. onomatopœic. In use two centuries earlier than TATTLE, but app. treated as a parallel form of that vb. with lighter vowel expressing lighter sound; cf. the reduplicated TITTLE-TATTLE. Its relation to the earlier TUTEL, TOTEL, in the same sense, is difficult to determine.] intr. and trans. To speak in a whisper or in a low voice, to whisper; also, to tell or utter by way of tattle or gossip; esp. † to whisper in the ear of, to tell (a person) confidentially (obs.): cf. TICKLE v.2
1399. [implied in TITTLER1].
c. 1450. Mankind, 550, in Macro Plays, 21. I xall go to hys ere and tytyll þer in.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. xxiv. 60. They tytled the prince euer in his eare, and entysed hym to haue made warre.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VII., 22. He caused diuerse to inculcate and put in her hed & tyttle in her eare, that the mariage made with Maximilian was of no strength.
c. 1610. Sir J. Melvil, Mem., Pref. (1735), 21. I should have … titled in the Queen’s ear that her rebellious subjects should have been exemplarily punished.
1887. J. Service, Dr. Duguid, xii. 77. They were a’ tittlin’ thegether and talkin’ in this form.
Hence Tittling vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
13[?]. S. Eng. Leg. (MS. Bodl. 779), in Herrig’s Archiv, LXXXII. 339/169. Ȝif þis titlyng come al to þe emperour no man ne may don him non help.
1565–73. Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Argutus, Meretrix arguta, a harlot full of wordes: a titlyng harlot.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. (S.T.S.), I. 134. Ferleg … was steired vpe throuch titling of sum of the courteouris in his eires.
1785. Burns, Holy Fair, ix. Here sits a raw o’ tittlin jades.
