tetter

noun

1. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Any of various pustular skin conditions.

   “heal this tetter of pedagogism that bespreads him”

   “Angelus Politianus had a tetter in his nose continually running, fulsome in company, yet no man so eloquent and pleasing in his works.”

   “A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick”

   “She works at St. Veronica’s hospital, lives nearby at the home of a Mrs. Quoad, a lady widowed long ago and since suffering a series of antiquated diseases—greensickness, tetter, kibes, purples, imposthumes and almonds in the ears, most recently a touch of scurvy.”

2. (obsolete)Potato, or sweet potato root.

   “Buh Sparruh biggin fur brag, an eh say: "Me tetter, him heap bigger den any me see. Me farruh befo me blan plant tetter, an him tetter bigger ner de calf er me leg. Me kin beat me farruh raise tetter”

   “But mebbe you ax, is tetter wine("vine") a bad ting? No, I say, tetter wine is a good ting. You cant hab tetter widout de tetter wine. Dat wha' tetter wine fur? To mek tetter. But dat tetter wine dat ent mek tetter, dats a bad tetter wine kase e barren tetter wine.”

verb

1. To affect with tetter.

   “[…] And all my smooth body, barked and tettered over.”

   “Most deaths are ugly, pathetic events, and Shakespeare must have seen his share of them in bodies tettered by the pox, made noseless by syphilis, or festering blackly from the plague.”

   “I bent down to touch him, for my revulsion had gone, and had been replaced by a great love and sorrow; and thus I wept upon his form, that was cold like a corpse's, its wasted brawn tettered all over with sores and encrustations that were not the botches and whelks of leprosy — though e'en then I would have embraced him, as St Hugh of Lincoln kissed many a leper for the good of his own spirit!”