Word.ws English Dictionary

tittynope

tittynope noun: a small amount left over; a modicum.

Noun

tittynope (plural tittynopes)

  1. (rare) A small amount left over; a modicum.
    • When I ask if she can spare a tittynope of her love for this hopeless sailor2016, Leah Edwards, “Love like Popchips”, in Wooden Teeth (The George Washington University), volume 39, page 29, column 1
    • We will sip tea, binge and brannigan
      on vocabulary, nibble on sweets and yes―
      leave a small bit, a tittynope, for the birds.2021, Lucy Griffith, “Meet Me at the Growlery”, in Diane Lockward, editor, The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft, Terrapin Books (e-book via eBookIt.com), →ISBN, →OCLC

Forms of tittynope

pluraltittynopes

Origin of tittynope

Originally Yorkshire dialect for a small quantity of grain in gleaning. EDD gives titty-mouse, found in West Yorkshire, as a synonym; the same word has an additional meaning of titmouse (“small bird, chickadee”) in the dialects of Lancashire and Norfolk, and is likely a variant thereof. By analogy, tittynope might be from tit (“chickadee; bit, morsel”) + -y + nope (“bullfinch, titmouse”). Note that "tit-nope" is attested dialectally, referring to the blue tit. On the other hand, some websites give a derivation from tittle (“dot of the letter i; modicum, speck”). There are many similar-sounding words meaning "small" such as itty-bitty and little, so the first part of the word could simply be an example of sound symbolism; although if the etymology above is correct, it likely derives from the same source as the bird tit.

Questions about tittynope

What does tittynope mean?
Tittynope means a small amount left over; a modicum.
What part of speech is tittynope?
Tittynope is a noun.
What is the plural of tittynope?
The plural of tittynope is tittynopes.

Words near tittynope in the dictionary

  1. Tittybong
  2. tittyfuck
  3. tittyfucked
  4. tittyfucking
  5. tittyfucks
  6. tittynope
  7. tittynopes
  8. tittytainment
  9. Titu
  10. titubancy
  11. titubant

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tittynope (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “tittynope.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tittynope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.