dottle

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɒtəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Rhymes: -ɒtəl

From Middle English dottel, dottelle (“a plug or tap of a vessel”), a diminutive of Old English dott (> English dot (“a point”)), equivalent to dot +‎ -le. Related to Old English dyttan (“to stop up, clot”), Dutch dot (“a knot, lump, clod”), Low German Dutte (“a plug”). More at dit.

• dottel

dottle (plural dottles)

1. A plug or tap of a vessel.
2. A small rounded lump or mass.
3. The still burning or wholly burnt tobacco plug in a pipe.
   • 1892, Richard Oliver Heslop, Northumberland Words. English Dialect Society - Kegan Paul et al.

     In refilling a pipe, where twist is smoked, a common practice is to save the dottle and put it on the top of the new-filled pipe. "Aw like a baccy dottle to leet wiv."

   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine, Faber, page 96:

     one hand guards the burning dottle of my pipe from the force of the wind

   • 1981, John Gardner, Freddy's Book, Abacus, published 1982, page 38:

     I clenched my pipe in my right fist and poked at the dottle busily with various fingers, first one then another, of my left hand.

   • 1984, Alan Dean Foster, The Hour of the Gate, page 89:

     He tapped out the dottle on the deck, locked the steering oar in position, and commenced repacking his pipe.

   • 2010, Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles:

     I fiddle and scrape and poke for a while, banging out the dottle from my previous pipeful into an ashtray and puffing down the stem like a horn player warming up his trumpet.

4. (Geordie) A baby's dummy, pacifier.

• Scott Dobson, Dick Irwin “dottle”, in Newcastle 1970s: Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 September 2024.
• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “DOTTLE”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4

dottle (third-person singular simple present dottles, present participle dottling, simple past and past participle dottled)

1. To set pottery flatware horizontally on thimbles.

Related to dote, dotard.

dottle (comparative more dottle, superlative most dottle)

1. (Scotland) Stupid or senile.
   • 1893, David Herschell Edwards, One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets: With Biographical and Critical Notices, volume 15, page 403:

     When days and years proclaim you’re old —
      A dottle, cripple, gouty fellow,
     Then for support you can lay hold
      O’ the upright of your umberella.

dottle (plural dottles)

1. (Scotland) A dotard.

• dodipole, dotel; see also Thesaurus:dotard

• Dettol, lotted, tolted