tetter

plural tetters

1. archaiccountableuncountableAny of various pustular skin conditions.

   A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick

   1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

   3 more examples

   heal this tetter of pedagogism that bespreads him

   1642 April, An Apology against a Pamphlet Call’d A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus, London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, […], →OCLC

   Angelus Politianus had a tetter in his nose continually running, fulsome in company, yet no man so eloquent and pleasing in his works.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 3, member 2

   She works at St. Veronica’s hospital, lives nearby at the home of a Mrs. Quoad, a lady widowed long ago and since suffering a series of antiquated diseases—greensickness, tetter, kibes, purples, imposthumes and almonds in the ears, most recently a touch of scurvy.

   1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

present singular third person tetters · participle present tettering · participle past tettered · past tettered

1. To affect with tetter.

   […] And all my smooth body, barked and tettered over.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]

   2 more examples

   Most deaths are ugly, pathetic events, and Shakespeare must have seen his share of them in bodies tettered by the pox, made noseless by syphilis, or festering blackly from the plague.

   1987, James L Calderwood, Shakespeare & the Denial of Death, page 134

   I bent down to touch him, for my revulsion had gone, and had been replaced by a great love and sorrow; and thus I wept upon his form, that was cold like a corpse's, its wasted brawn tettered all over with sores and encrustations that were not the botches and whelks of leprosy — though e'en then I would have embraced him, as St Hugh of Lincoln kissed many a leper for the good of his own spirit!

   2009, Adam Thorpe, Hodd, published 2010, page 284

plural tetters

1. obsoleteRegional Dixieland vernacularPotato, or sweet potato root.

   Buh Sparruh biggin fur brag, an eh say: "Me tetter, him heap bigger den any me see. Me farruh befo me blan plant tetter, an him tetter bigger ner de calf er me leg. Me kin beat me farruh raise tetter

   1888, Charles Colcock Jones, Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast, Told in the Vernacular

   1 more example

   But mebbe you ax, is tetter wine("vine") a bad ting? No, I say, tetter wine is a good ting. You cant hab tetter widout de tetter wine. Dat wha' tetter wine fur? To mek tetter. But dat tetter wine dat ent mek tetter, dats a bad tetter wine kase e barren tetter wine.

   1895, John G. Williams, "De Ole Plantation."