One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (16 page)

T IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (phrase)
To cross the t’s
means to be minutely exact.

2. (in literature)
“We could manage this matter to a T.”
(meaning perfectly).—Laurence Sterne,
Tristram
Shandy

3. (in literature)
“T is viceregal lodge.”
—James Joyce,
Ulysses

4. (in literature)
“T is a hammer.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding

5.
adv.
Exactly,
as in “It suits you to a T.”
He pushed Ottomar Fuldam’s portrait to one side and, lo and behold! A tasty smell of cooking wafted out of a hole behind. No sooner did I see the hole than a head popped up—and please don’t fall from your chair for a third time—it resembled the head in Ottomar Fuldam’s portrait to a “T”!
—Wolfgang Bauer,
The Feverhead

6.
n.
A written representation of the letter.

7.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

SQUARES AND OTHER SHAPES

8.
n.
Something having the shape of a T.
There was a person standing right next to the embankment, describing a large T in the night with two blazing torches!
—Wolfgang Bauer,
The Feverhead
A map. A broken T scribed with city streets and strings of numbers. It reminds her of a steak’s
T-bone, the upright tapering raggedly, the left cross-
arm truncated. Within its outline are avenues,
squares, circles, a long rectangle suggesting a park.
—William Gibson,
Pattern Recognition
He had a hairy chest, and the hair had a nice, natural pattern to it, across his chest and then a trail down his stomach, a T.
—Augusten Burroughs,
Sellevision: A Novel

9.
n.
T-bone:
a thick loin steak containing a T-shaped bone.
Before Lieutenant Breeze (Richard Lane) can arrest Mrs. Murdock for slaying her husband, however, she accidentally chokes to death on a piece of
T-bone steak—a rather implausible, if convenient, way of disposing of the villainess.
—Gene D. Phillips,
Creatures of Darkness: Raymond Chandler, Detective Fiction, and Film Noir

10.
n.
T-bone crash:
a side-impact car crash, the two cars forming a T-shape.
[S]ide-impact or T-bone crashes—where one car slams into the side of another—kill an estimated
9,000 people a year in the United States.
—Jerry Edgerton,
Car Shopping Made Easy

11.
n.
T bar:
1. a rolled metal beam with a cross section. 2. a piece of body jewelry used in piercing. 3. a type of ski lift. 4. a car roof design which includes two sunroofs. 5. a T-shaped shoe strap.
[A] fast-rising sporting-goods magnate by the name of
T Bar Waites.
—David James Duncan,
The Brothers K

12.
n.
T top:
a T-shaped car roof design, as in a Corvette.
I dreamed of pulling a real 1979 Corvette T-Top out of that cool, yellow and blue building.
—Tim Walsh,
The Playmakers: Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys

13.
n.
T roof:
a T-shaped car roof design, as in a Thunderbird.
Highlights from this incredibly successful three-year run included the introduction of a sporty
“T-roof” option in the spring of 1978.
—Mike Mueller,
Thunderbird Milestones

14.
n.
T formation:
an offensive football lineup.
The Bears returned to the finals in 1940, at the beginning of pro football’s modern era with the formal unveiling of the T-formation.
—Dale Ratermann,
Football Crossroads

15.
n.
T cushion:
“the technical name for the removable cushion in a stuffed chair, which looks like a very broad and squat T”—Dr. John Burkardt

16.
n.
T cart:
an open 2-seat, 4-wheeled carriage whose body is T-shaped.
He bought an expensive new saddle horse named
Fritz of which he was inordinately proud and a “very stylish” new T-cart for drives in the park.
—David McCullough,
Mornings on Horseback: The
Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore
Roosevelt

17.
n.
T hinge:
a hinge in the shape of the letter T.
A close relative of the strap hinge is the T hinge, which is like a strap hinge on one side, and a butt hinge on the other.
—John Holloway,
Illustrated
Theatre Production Guide

18.
n.
T iron:
a rod with a crosspiece at the end used as a hook.

19.
n.
T dress:
a T-shirt long enough to be worn as a dress.

20.
n.
T joint (also tee joint):
an electrical connection between a main conductor and a branch conductor.

21.
n.
T head:
a flat-headed bolt.
Bruder said nothing, the nails stored between his teeth, a T-head bolt behind each ear.
—David Ebershoff,
Pasadena: A Novel

22.
n.
T-head pier:
“a pier in the shape of a capital T, with a single walkway extending from the shore, which then terminates in a transverse section”—Dr. John Burkardt
Nolan followed a service hallway which led to the employees’ lounge at the end of the T-head pier.
—Matt Braun,
The Overlords

23.
n.
T bevel:
“an adjustable gauge with a wood or plastic handle and a metal blade that pivots out.—eHow.com

24.
n.
T-beam bridge:
“a reinforced concrete bridge made of a single slab whose cross-section at the supports resembles a series of T’s.”—Dr. John Burkardt

25.
n.
T back:
a style of bathing suit that forms a T shape in the back.
So in walks these three guys in nothing but T-back bathing suits.
—Patrika Vaughn,
Everything You
Need to Know to Write, Publish, and Market Your
Book

26.
n.
T bolt:
a bolt with a sharp T-shaped profile.

27.
n.
T nut:
a nut that is T-shaped.

28.
n.
T rail:
a rail with a T-shaped cross-section.

29.
n.
T plate:
“a T-shaped plate used as a splice and for stiffening a joint where the end of one beam abuts against the side of another.”—Dr. John Burkardt

30.
n.
T maze:
“a simple maze whose blind alleys end in short left and right turns, so that it looks as though it were constructed from a collection of T’s, or, to a computer scientist, constructed through recursive application of the T function.”—Dr. John Burkardt
In a T-maze a mouse may turn to the right (R) and receive a mild shock, or to the left (L) and get a piece of cheese.
—Abe Mizrahi and Michael Sullivan,
Mathematics: An Applied Approach, 7th Ed.

31.
n.
T slot:
an indentation in wood, for example, that allows accessories to be positioned or follow a track.

32.
n.
T square:
a ruler with a crosspiece used to draw horizontal lines and to hold triangles for vertical lines.

33.
n.
T strap:
a T-shaped part of an open shoe formed by a strap rising from the throat over the instep and fastening to an ankle strap.”—Dr. John Burkardt

34.
n.
T tube:
a T-shaped rubber tube, “used to drain the common bile duct.”—Dr. John Burkardt

35.
n.
T wrench:
a T-shaped wrench whose handle is comprised of a socket that can turn a nut.

36.
n.
Meridian angle.

CONTRACTION ’T

37.
It.
’T
was the night before Christmas.

38.
To.
That’s why I came t’ get you.
—Haruki Murakami,
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

39.
The.
one or
t’
other.

SCIENTIFIC MATTERS

40.
n.
(biology)
Thymine,
one of the four nitrogenous bases found in DNA nucleotides.

41.
n.
(biology)
T mycoplasma:
a virus-like microorganism whose shape suggests a letter T.

42.
n.
A computer hacker attack,
also known as “differential cryptanalysis,” involving “a complicated series of mathematical assaults that required lots of chosen plaintext (meaning that the attacker needed to have matched sets of original dispatches and encrypted output).”—Steven Levy,
Crypto:
How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving
Privacy in the Digital Age

43.
n.
(medicine)
T bandage:
“a T-shaped bandage used around the waist or perineum.”—Dr. John Burkardt

44.
n.
(electronics)
T connector:
a type of electrical binding post.

45.
n.
(electronics)
T joint:
“an electrical connection used for joining a branch conductor to a main conductor which continues beyond the branch.”—Dr. John Burkardt

46.
n.
(botany)
T budding (also shield budding):
“a plant budding in which an oval piece of bark bearing a scion bud is fitted into a T-shaped opening in the bark of the stock.”—Dr. John Burkardt

MISCELLANEOUS

47.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated T
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).

48.
n.
Someone called T.
T—, one of the great young surfers, turns up one day with a three-wheel trunk motorcycle, the kind drugstore delivery boys use…and he’s got every pill and capsule you ever imagined.
—Tom Wolfe,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
T simply did not want to leave quickly and quietly.
—Al Lutz, “Miceage.com”

49.
n.
The twentieth in a series.

50.
n.
A medieval Roman numeral for 160.

51.
n.
A biblical sign for the number 300.
Three hundred contains the symbol of crucifixion. The letter T is the sign for three hundred.
—Andrew Louth,
Genesis 1–11: Ancient Christian
Commentary on Scripture