What it means
A classic British jab for someone being daft, clueless, or just a bit of an annoying muppet. It usually lands light rather than nasty, the sort of thing you chuck at a mate who's done something thick again. It can also mean the body part, so context does the heavy lifting.
Usage examples
"He turned up to the wake in a flamingo shirt and shades. What a tit. Even the vicar clocked it and gave him the look."
"Stop being a tit and put the traffic cone back before someone calls it in."
"He looked a proper tit dancing on his own, but he was having the time of his life."
"You absolute tit, you left the chips on the car roof and drove off."
"Don't be a tit, just text her back instead of doing all this weird dramatic sulking."
Where it comes from
As an insult, tit is tied to the bird name tit, with the silly-person sense showing up in British English in the early 1900s. The body-part meaning is older and comes from a separate old Germanic word for teat or nipple. Same spelling, different family tree.
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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