tithing

English

Etymology

From Middle English tithyng, from Old English tēoþung or tēoðung, from tēoða (“tithe, n.”) + -ing (“forming patronymics & diminutives”) and tēoðian (“tithe, v.”) + -ung (“forming verbal nouns”). Equivalent to tithe +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪðɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -aɪðɪŋ

Noun

tithing (plural tithings)

1. A tithe or tenth in its various senses, (particularly):
   1. The tithe given as an offering to the church.
      • 1998, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP (2019), page 294:

        I prayed for the sick and saw some of them healed under my hands. I was given tithings of money and food by people who had not enough to eat themselves.

   2. The payment of tithes.
   3. The collection of tithes.
2. (dialectal) Ten sheaves of wheat (originally set up as such for the tithe proctor).
   • 1934, Dylan Thomas, “I see the boys of summer”, in 18 Poems, London: The Fortune Press:

     I see the boys of summer in their ruin / Lay the gold tithings barren, / Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils

3. (historical, law) A body of households (originally a tenth of a hundred or ten households) bound by frankpledge to collective responsibility and punishment for each other's behavior.
4. (historical, law) A part of the hundred as a rural division of territory.

Synonyms

• (tenth): See tenth and tithe
• (oath-bound division of the hundred): decenary, decime, frankpledge, fribourg

Derived terms

• tithing-barn
• tithing days
• tithingman, tithing-man
• tithing-penny
• tithing port
• tithing-sheaf
• tithing-system
• tithing table
• tithing-time

 

See also

• (oath-bound division of the hundred, adj.): decenary
• (oath-bound division of the hundred, leader): See tithingman
• (oath-bound division of the hundred, member): See decenary

Verb

tithing

1. present participle and gerund of tithe

Anagrams

• hitting