tithing
noun/ˈtaɪðɪŋ/
Etymology From Middle English tithyng, from Old English tēoþung or tēoðung, from tēoða (“a tithe”) + -ing (suffix forming patronymics and diminutives) and tēoþian (“to tithe”) + -ung (suffix forming verbal nouns). Equivalent to tithe + -ing.
› A tithe or tenth in its various senses…
1
The tithe given as an offering to the church.
- 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.1998, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP (2019), page 294:
2
The payment of tithes.
3
The collection of tithes.
4
Dialectal Ten sheaves of wheat (originally set up as such for the tithe proctor).
- I see the boys of summer in their ruin / Lay the gold tithings barren, / Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils1934, Dylan Thomas, “I see the boys of summer”, in 18 Poems, London: The Fortune Press:
5
Law Historical 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.
6
Law Historical A part of the hundred as a rural division of territory.
- Synonyms
- tenth and tithe, 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
- Related terms
- decenary, tithingman