dottle

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɒtəl/

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.
   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine, Faber p. 96:

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

   • 1981, John Gardner, Freddy's Book, Abacus 1982, p. 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.

• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin,
• The New Geordie Dictionary, Frank Graham, 1987, →ISBN
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4

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.

• lotted, tolted