(tēˈtər-tŏtˌər)
noun Upper Northern & Western U.S. Regional Note: The outdoor toy usually called a
seesaw has a number of regional names, New England having the greatest variety in the smallest area. In southeast New England it is called a
tilt or a
tilting board. Speakers in northeast Massachusetts call it a
teedle board; in the Narragansett Bay area the term changes to
dandle or
dandle board. Teeter or
teeterboard is used more generally in the northeast United States, while
teeter-totter, probably the most common term after
seesaw, is used across the inland northern states and westward to the West Coast. Both
seesaw (from the verb
saw) and
teeter-totter (from
teeter, as in
to teeter on the edge) demonstrate the linguistic process called reduplication, where a word or syllable is doubled, often with a different vowel. Reduplication is typical of words that indicate repeated activity, such as riding up and down on a seesaw.
