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tote

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tote verb Of a person: to carry (usually something heavy). [DARE labels this term “widespread, but more frequent South, South Midland”]

1834 Crockett Narrative 63 I would have taken her up, and toated her, if it hadn’t been that I wanted her where I could see her all the time. 1862 Dalton CW Letters (Feb 5) wee have to toat wood about A half amile and mud I never Saw the like. 1864 Reese CW Letters (May 31) tha[y] giv mee a gun to tote But this morning colonel weaver had it turned over so I hav no gun to tote. 1929 (in 1952 Mathes Tall Tales 135) “Git out thar, Jake, an’ tote the little-un in the house,” Uncle Hamp ordered. 1953 Hall Coll (Bryson City NC) [I] first started huntin’ at age fourteen, when I was big enough to tote a gun, with an old-fashioned rifle. 1983 Dark Corner OHP 10A That’s our job when we were real little was toting slabs we called it. We didn’t know “carry” then, so it was “toting,” and we’d carry them as far as from here to the garden down there.

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