teat

From Middle English tete, from Old French tete (“teat”) (compare French tette), from Frankish *tittā, *tittō, from Proto-Germanic *tittaz (“teat; nipple; breast”), ultimately of expressive origin. Compare Old High German zizza ("teat"; modern German Zitze), whence also Italian zizza (“teat”).

It heavily displaced Old English titt, a cognate of the same origin, which survives as tit, but in more vulgar use. Compare Dutch tiet and German Zitze (“teat”).

• IPA^(key): /tiːt/

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• Rhymes: -iːt

teat (plural teats)

1. (anatomy) The projection of a mammary gland from which, on female mammals, milk is secreted.
   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 107:

     Milk formed their chief diet, and this they were supposed to imbibe from the witch herself, from a third "teat" which had been made beneath the arm by a nip from the Devil's pincers.

   Synonyms: tit (now vulgar), pap, nipple, dug

2. Something resembling a teat, such as a small protuberance or nozzle.
3. An artificial nipple used for bottle-feeding infants.

• 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 23:3:

  And they committed whordomes in Egypt, they committed whordomes in their youth: there were their brests pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginitie.

• breast, mammary gland, tit, udder

• Etta, Tate, Teta, aett, tate