If someone is teetotal, or a teetotaller, it means they do not drink alcohol. Not at all; not even a little bit.

It appears the origin is from the word "total" as in total abstainer, with extra emphasis on the first "T". "T-Total"

According to http://www.uselessknowledge.com/word/teetotal.shtml,

It was first used in the sense of abstaining from alcohol at an 1833 temperance rally in England by a working man named Richard Turner.

Tee*to"tal (?), a.

Entire; total.

[Colloq.]

 

© Webster 1913.

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