subs. phr. (Winchester: obsolete).—See quot.
1881. Felstedian, Nov., 84. It was that brute A—— who ‘TO-FITTI-ED’ me last night…. Let me explain … it is nothing more or less than the commencement of a line in the old, familiar, ‘As in præsenti perfectum format in avi’ … ‘TO FIT-TI,’ in reference to verbs of the third conjugation transferred from the similarity of sound to the schoolboy’s toe; it consisted in tying a running noose on a piece of string, cunningly turning up the bedclothes at the foot, putting it round the big toe of an unconscious sleeper, running the noose up tight, and pulling till the victim followed the direction of the string from the pain getting farther out of bed, and nearer the floor till released.
