Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Same as
stickleback .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The three-spined stickleback.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun UK, dialect The three-
spined stickleback .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
-
He had no creel slung from his shoulder, but a coarse clean wallet that was rather bulgy, its appearance suggesting that it was carried because it contained something to eat, while its owner held in one hand, slung by a stoutish lanyard, a big, wide-mouthed glass bottle half full of water, and in the other hand a little yellow canvas net attached to a brass ring at the end of a stick, the sort of implement that little boys use when bound upon the chase and capture of the mighty "tittlebat."
The Ocean Cat's Paw The Story of a Strange Cruise George Manville Fenn 1870
knitandpurl commented on the word tittlebat
three-spined stickleback, according to Websters.
From The Old Curiosity Shop:
"What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day!"
(p 255 of the Penguin English Library edition)
December 1, 2007