dotty, a.
(ˈdɒtɪ)
[f. dot n.1 + -y1.]
1. Consisting of or characterized by dots; dot-like.
| 1812 Examiner 30 Nov. 763/2 That dotty softness, which confers so..natural a character on the flesh. 1879 Stevenson Trav. Cevennes 80 A low dotty underwood that grew thickly in the gorges. |
2. Of unsteady, uneven or feeble gait, as from stiffness or lameness. Hence fig., feeble in mind, silly. colloq. or dial.
| 14.. in J. Glyde New Suffolk Garland (1866) 213 Ale mak many a mane to have a doty poll. 1870 Sportsman 9 Apr. (Farmer), He begins to go a little stiff in his limbs and dotty on his feet. 1884 Daily Tel. 9 Apr. 2/6 (ibid.) He [a race-horse] pulled up in a dotty condition. 1885 Standard 13 Mar. 6/6, I am not mad, drunk, or dotty. 1888 E. Laws Hist. Little England 420/1 Dotty, silly from age; senile. 1896 Evesham Jrnl. 28 Nov. (E.D.D.), The Council hardly knows if he has not gone ‘dotty’. 1936 Bentley & Allen Trent's Own Case vii. 73 The Englishman looked sick and a bit dotty. 1948 R. Lehmann Note in Music (ed. 2) iv. 130 Quite wrapped up in herself—with something pretty rum staring out of her eyes. A bit dotty, perhaps. 1971 Sunday Times 16 May 32/8 Taya Zinkin, with a kind of dotty inevitability, ends as an authority on India. |
Hence ˈdottily adv., in a ‘dotty’, mad, or eccentric manner; absurdly, crazily; ˈdottiness, (a) unsteadiness of gait; (b) (colloq.) eccentricity, feeble-mindedness, craziness.
| 1888 Matlock Visiting List 29 Aug. 3/3 An amount of dottiness like the lurching of a landsman on a rolling steamer. 1934 Webster, Dottily. 1934 Wodehouse Thank You, Jeeves xii. 162 Dotty, beyond a question. And who knew but what that dottiness might not run in the family? 1959 P. Bull I know the Face viii. 135, I was in the witness-box or court throughout and was drugged to the point of dottiness. 1969 Dottily [see honeyish a.]. 1978 Economist 4 Feb. 14/1 The cardinal hesitates... He is looking over his shoulder at his conservative fellow bishops in the Catholic hierarchy, for whom dottily enough he is not the spokesman. 1984 Financial Times 5 June 19/5 The fable of the Little Mermaid provides a symbolic leitmotiv that recurs from the opening scene when Mette's dottily genteel mother..recalls the mortal prince loved by a sea-creature. |