Tot Meaning
/tɒt/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA small child.
nounA small amount of liquor, (particularly) a small measure of rum.
Sentence Examples
The tot had sticky fingers.
The tot still liked baby food.
Ziri was very close tot he camp site.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The little ____ took his first steps in the living room today.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A small ____ was seen playing happily with her favorite toys in the middle of the sunny living room today.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Scots tot, a shortened form of totum (“small child; tot”), of uncertain origin, perhaps shortened from totter (“to move in an unsteady way”), Compare tottle, also Old Norse tottr (“name of a dwarf”), Swedish tutte (“small child”), Danish tommeltot (“little child”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"When I was but a tiny tot, I knocked the neighbors cold / For I became to walk when I was scarcely one year old"
— 1907, Dave Reed Jr, “You'll Have to Get Off and Walk: Comic Novelty Song and Refrain”, M. Witmark & Sons:
"Death conditioning begins at eighteen months. Every tot spends two mornings a week in a Hospital for the Dying. All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days."
— 1932, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus:
"Then I give them a tot of rum apiece, as they sit huddled in their blankets."
— 1897, Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa:
"And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep."
— 1916, Siegfried Sassoon, The Working Party:
"Whoe answeared like a toute, or a maddman, as he was, that he was for the Kinge."
— a. 1660, A Contemporary History Of Affairs In Ireland:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The little ____ took his first steps in the living room today.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A small ____ was seen playing happily with her favorite toys in the middle of the sunny living room today.