/tit'ee/ (its pronunciation, but some unix people say it this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have sexual undertones), /T T Y/

1. teletypewriter.

2. (Especially unix) Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a given job (it is also the name of a Unix command which outputs the name of the current controlling terminal).

3. (unix) Any serial port, whether or not the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because under Unix such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome.

4. A tdd.

[jargon file]