tidings

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English tidinges, the plural of tiding, also tidinge,^[2][1] inherited from Old English tīdung (“event, piece of news”).^[3][4][2] The source of the Old English noun is disputed.^[5][1] In form it looks like a derivative of tīdan (“to happen”), the source of betide,^[5][6] and Etymonline, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com treat it so, Etymonline allowing some Norse influence.^[3][7][8] The OED, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English consider it probably borrowed from Old Norse tíðindi (“events, news”), from tíðr (“happening, occurring”).^[5][9][10] The OED's reasons are that the word is unknown in Old English before the late 11th or early 12th century, that it is first recorded in the sense "news", and that early Middle English also had clearly Norse forms such as tīthend, with mixed forms in between.^[5] Wiktionary instead sees a merger of a native Proto-West Germanic *tīdungō with the Norse-influenced type, because of the cognates Dutch tijding and German Zeitung (“newspaper”).^[1][3] Compare also Danish tidende.^[5][2] Klein connects the Norse adjective with tíð (“time”), and so with tide.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of news: in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the annal for 995 in manuscript F, where the king is glad at the news.^[5][11] Barnhart dates the Old English word to 1069, also in the Chronicle,^[4] and Middle English tidinge to probably before 1200, in Layamon.^[4] Etymonline dates the plural to the late 12th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Ayto takes "events" as the first meaning and "news of events" as its development, and compares the move from "events" to "newspaper" in the German word.^[6] The OED likewise calls "something that happens" the older sense etymologically, although it is recorded after "news": its first record is in Layamon's Brut (c. 1275), and it is now obsolete or archaic.^[12][5] Layamon also has the word for a custom, a rare use.^[5] The Norse plural type, tithandes and tithans, lasted to the 15th century in northern English and to the 16th and 17th centuries in Scots, while the anglicized form is the one that survives.^[5] The singular tiding is now obsolete or archaic for a piece of news,^[5] and the plural is sometimes treated as a singular, as with news, a use recorded from before 1400 in the Cursor Mundi.^[5][2] Johnson (1755) defined the word as news, an account of something that has happened.^[13] Wiktionary's quotations for the plural come from the carols God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (18th century) and We Wish You a Merry Christmas (19th century).^[1]

Timeline

• late Old English – tīdung, a piece of news.^[5][11][4]
• before 1200 – tidinge, news, in Layamon.^[4]
• c. 1275 – something that happens, an event; also a custom (now obsolete).^[5]
• before 1400 – the plural construed as a singular.^[5]
• before 1440 – figuratively, indications or traces (now obsolete).^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. News or information that is brought to someone: The rider brought grim tidings from the border.^[14][7][5]
2. (archaic) An event or occurrence.^[7][5]

Related words

• tide
• betide
• tiding

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins