toot
verbEtymology Probably onomatopoeic in origin. Compare Dutch toeteren (“to blow a horn”), German tuten, Swedish tuta, Danish tude. Noun etymology 1, noun sense 7 ("Mastodon post") and verb etymology 1, verb sense 10 ("to post on Mastodon") are influenced by tweet (“Twitter post”).
10 senses
- 1To stand out, or be prominent.
- 2To peep; to look narrowly.
- 3To see; to spy.
- 4To produce the noise of a horn or whistle.
- 5To cause a horn or whistle to produce a noise.
- 6To flatulate.
- 7Of a queen bee, to make a high-pitched sound during…
- 8To go on a drinking binge.
- 9To snort (a recreational drug).
- 10To post a message on a Mastodon instance.
1
To stand out, or be prominent.
- Now rise up, Master Huddypeke, Your tail toteth out behind.1519, John Rastell, Four Elements:
2
To peep; to look narrowly.
- In the court, in the noblemen's houses, at every merchant's house, those Observants were spying, tooting, and looking, watching and prying, what they might hear or see against the see of Rome.1550 November 9, Hugh Latimer, A Sermon preached at Stamford:
- Long wandering up and downe the land, With bowe and bolts in either hand, For birds in bushes tooting.1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender:
3
To see; to spy.
4
To produce the noise of a horn or whistle.
- The island rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches.1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes:
- A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 205:
5
To cause a horn or whistle to produce a noise.
- "In the morning, we get deer on the line. We tend not to 'toot' them because it seems that only makes them more likely to run across the track."2025 August 20, Paul Clifton, “A driver's eye view of East West Rail”, in RAIL, number 1042, page 33:
6
Slang To flatulate.
7
Of a queen bee, to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development.
8
Slang To go on a drinking binge.
9
Slang To snort (a recreational drug).
- I had graduated from the simple tooting cocaine up my nose to smoking it, which was a completely different experience and animal.2008, Robert L. Glover, Street Corner Symphony: An American Story, page 65:
10
To post a message on a Mastodon instance.
- Only want to toot in the Animal Rights instance? You can create an account there and do that.2017 April 5, Jack Morse, “Bye, Twitter. All the cool kids are migrating to Mastodon”, in Mashable Australia:
- One alternative to Fist is Mastodon, which looks and behaves a bit like Twitter (you don’t tweet, you “toot”).2018 February 8, Marie Boran, “Why tweet when you can toot on Mastodon”, in The Irish Times:
1 more example
- Each instance has its own administrator and its own code of conduct, so make sure you read up before you toot.2018 August 24, Beth Skwarecki, “A Beginner's Guide to Mastodon”, in Lifehacker:
- Derived terms
- darn tootin', subtoot, tooter, tootle, toot one's own horn, untooted