TTFN

T1T1F4N1

A form of ta-ta for now — See ya, laters, (less formal version of) au revoir or till we meet again.

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UncommonScrabble 7

Meanings

phrase
  1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of ta-ta for now; goodbye.

    1974: Tigger (voiced by Paul Winchell) in Unbouncing Tigger – Well, I gotta go, now! I got a lot of bouncing to do! Hoo-hoo-hoo! TTFN! Ta ta for now!

    2 more examples

    1941-1945: (A catchphrase of Mrs Mopp (Dorothy Summers) in several series of the weekly topical comedy British radio programme It's That Man Again (ITMA))

    1966: Catwoman (played by Julie Newmar) in the Batman episode "Better Luck Next Time" – Catwoman: "'TTFN", Batman: "What does that mean?", Catwoman: "Ta-ta for now."

    Synonyms: TT4N

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

In 1939, initialisms, previously rarely used except by the military, were heard more frequently by the British public. ITMA satirised them by coining TTFN, a "pointless" initialism (no easier to say than the phrase on which it was based) to use as a catchphrase, which became widely repeated in the UK. Thirty years later, American ventriloquist Paul Winchell, following the suggestion of his third wife, Jean Freeman, who was British, improvised it as a signature phrase for the (originally British) character Tigger in the Disney films based on A. A. Milne's book The House at Pooh Corner. This, in a world now accustomed to them, popularised worldwide a word originally coined to make fun of initialisms.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

TTFN. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TTFN

MLA

“TTFN.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TTFN. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “TTFN,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/TTFN.

Source: TTFN on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.