Chapter Tironian Sign to Toads of T by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Titivate (3 syl.). To tidy up; to dress up; to set in order. “Titi” is a variant of tidy; and “vate” is an affix, from the Latin vado (to go), meaning “to go and do something.”

Tittle Tattle Tattle is prate. (Dutch tateren, Italian, tatta-mélla.) Tittle is little, same as tit in titmouse, little tit, tit-bit.

“Pish' Why do I spend my time in tittle-tattle?”
Otway: Cheats of Scapin, i. 1.

Titus The penitent thief, called Desmas in the ancient mysteries. (See Dumachus. )

Titus the Roman Emperor was called “the delight of men.” (40, 79-81.)

“Titus indeed gave one short evening gleam,
More cordral felt, as in the midst it spread
Of storm and horror; the delight of men.”
Thomson: Liberty, iii.

   The Arch of Titus commemorates the capture of Jerusalem, A.D. 70.

Tityos A giant whose body covered nine acres of land. He tried to defile Latona, but Apollo cast him into Tartarus, where a vulture fed on his liver, which grew again as fast as it was devoured. (Greek fable.) (See Giants. )
    Prometheus (3 syl.) was chained to Mount Caucasus, and had his liver gnawed by a vulture or eagle. (See also St. George, who delivered Sabra, chained to a rock.)

Tityre Tus Dissolute young scape, graces, whose delight was to worry the watchmen, upset sedans, wrench knockers off doors, and be rude to pretty women, at the close of the seventeenth century. The name comes from the first line of Virgil's first Eclogue, “Titure tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi” (Tityre Tus loved to lurk in the dark night looking for mischief). “Tus” = tuze.

Tityrus Any shepherd. So called in allusion to the name familiar from its use in Greek idyls and Virgil's first Eclogue. In the Shepherd's Calendar Spenser calls Chaucer by this name.

“Heroes and their feats
Fatigue me, never weary of the pipe
Of Tityrus, assembling as he sang
The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech.”
Cowper.

Tizona One of the favourite swords of the Cid, taken by him from King Bucar. His other favourite sword was Colada. Tizona was buried with him. (See Sword. )

Tizzy (A). A sixpence. A variant of tester. In the reign of Henry VIII. a “testone” was a shilling, but only sixpence in the reign of Elizabeth. (French, teste, tête, the [monarch's] head.)

To (l) (to rhyme with, do). To be compared to; comparable to. Thus, Sir Thomas Browne (Religio Medici), says: “There is no torture to the rack of a disease” (p. 69, 20); and again, “No reproach to the scandal of a story.” And Shakespeare says:-

“There is no woe to his correction,
Nor to his service no such joy on earth.'
Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 4.

To Altogether; wholly.

“If the podech be burned to we says the byshope hath put his fote in the potte.”- Tyndate.

To-do Here's a pretty to-do. Disturbance. The French affaire - i.e. à faire (to do).

To Rights In apple-pie order. To put things to rights. To put every article in its proper place. In the United States of America the phrase is used to signify directly. (Latin, 'rectus, right.)

“I said I had never heard it, so she began to rights and told me the whole thing.”- Story of the Sleigh- ride.