dottle

Jan. 6th, 2014 07:22 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (words are sexy)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
dottle (DOT-l) - n., the plug of half-burnt tobacco and ashes left in the bottom of a pipe after smoking.


Roughly equivalent to the butt of a cigarette. Cleaning out the cake of dottle is part of the rituals of pipe-smoking, the whole of which are part of the appeal of smoking one in the first place. First attested in this sense in the early 1820s, a metaphoric extension of Middle English dottel or dottle, a lump or mass, originally dottel, the plug of the tap of a barrel, a diminutive of dot in the dialect sense of a lump.

---L.

March 2026

S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Mar. 5th, 2026 09:40 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios