▪ I. totum1 Now dial.
(ˈtəʊtəm)
[a. L. tōtum all, the whole, the initial T of which was one of the four letters inscribed on the teetotum: cf. F. toton, in Cotgr. and Dict. Acad. 1694–1740 totum, pronounced (tətɔ̃).]
= teetotum, q.v.
| [1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxii. 74 He playis with totum and I with nichell.] 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Totum, a Whirl-bone, a kind of Die that is turned about. 1734 Chesterfield in Lett. C'tess Suffolk (1824) II. 116 A couple of totums set a spinning. 1825 Jamieson, Totum [n. 1], the game of Te-totum. [See Eng. Dial. Dict., totum2.] |
▪ II. ˈtotum2 Sc.
[perh. a humorous extension of tot n.4; but generally associated with prec.]
A little child, a wee tot.
| 17.. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen in Aitken Scott. Song (1874) 146 Whene'er the totums cry for meat She curses aye his cogie. 1844 A. Cochrane in Whitelaw Bk. Scott. Song (1875) 73/1 Our twa bits o' totums are toddlin their lane. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 6 Oct. 3/2 The fact..that had generated so critical an eyesight in this ‘totum’ of three. |
▪ III. ‖ ˈtotum3
[L.: see totum1.]
A whole.
| 1657 J. Smith Myst. Rhet. A viij b, Totum, is whatsoever hath parts:..and so parts are such as make up the whole. a 1658 Cleveland On little Gentleman 22 How comes it that she thus converts So small a Totum, and great Parts? 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. i. §31 The totum or compositum of a man or animal may be said to be generated and corrupted, in regard of the union and disunion, conjunction and separation of those two parts, the soul and body. |