Other forms: totes, toting, toted
To tote is to carry something about with you. Tote a bag, toting a rifle, tote it around.
It is chiefly American and informal, and it usually implies the thing is heavy or awkward. A tote bag is a large open bag with handles, now the standard word everywhere. In British betting, the Tote is the pool system where the odds depend on how much has been staked, which is an unrelated word short for totalisator. Note tote board.
1verbtoteTo carry something about with you.
“She toted a heavy bag of books around campus all day.”
2nounlargeA large open bag with handles.
“She carried her books and her lunch in a canvas tote.”
tote is a carrying, or a bag.
The origin is uncertain, possibly from Middle Low German tute, a paper bag, though an origin in an African language brought through the American South has also been proposed and never settled.
Middle Low German
tûte
English, today
tote
Built from
Possibly from Middle Low German tûte, tǖte (“horn, conical paper bag”), whence also German Tute (“horn, bugle”) and German Tüte (“bag, paper bag”). Compare also Scots tout (“drinking vessel”), stq Tüütje (“paper bag”), West Frisian tút (“spout, toot, kiss”), Dutch tuit (“horn, spout, nozzle”), Danish tud (“spout, nozzle”), Faroese strútur (“spout”), Icelandic stútur (“spout”), Norwegian - and Swedish tut (“spout”), Old Norse tútna (“to be blown up”). Possibly ultimately from Proto-Germanic tut(t)- (“to stick out, protrude”). Alternatively, from a bnt - language; compare kg tota (“to pick up”), kmb tuta (“to carry, load”), sw tuta (“to pile, carry”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA