Also titup. [Goes with TITTUP sb.1] intr. To walk or go with an up-and-down movement; to walk in an affected manner; to mince or prance in one’s gait; of a horse or other animal, to canter, gallop easily; also, to prance; hence of a rider, or one driving a vehicle; of a boat, to toss with abrupt jerky movements.
1785. in European Mag. (1786), IX. 176. Then tittup’d along with a light mincing step, Little Yoffer Van-Sploom—a well known demi-rep.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., xxxix. A hare that came tit-upping by me.
1852. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, li. [He] saw the horsemen tittup-ing across a grass field.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, viii. A magnificent horse dancing and tittuping.
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 234. The Abstract Bagman tittups past in his spring gig.
1881. E. Warren, Laughing Eyes (1890), 26. The little dingy [a boat] titupped over the swell.
1904. A. Griffiths, 50 Yrs. Publ. Serv., 71. I can see him now tittupping over the heather on his fat grey pony.
Hence Tittuping vbl. sb.
1833. New Monthly Mag., XXXVIII. 300. The appropriateness of the harmony itself sinks before the tittuping of an arpeggio bass.
1858. Morn. Star, 30 Jan. For such poetic cantering, such tit-tupping of Pegasus in a rhythmic Rotten Row.
