Tenth a. and sb.

Forms: see below in A. 1. [Various formations from the cardinal numeral TEN, at earlier and later stages of its history. The early forms represent Indo-Eur. *dekmtos (Gr. δέκατος, Lith. deszimtas, OSlav. desjātyĭ) simply, or with assimilation to the form of the cardinal; the later are new formations on ten, with the suffix -th, -d, -t, ablaut forms of pre-Teut. -tos. Like the other ordinals, only of the weak declension: in OE. with sing. masc. -a, fem. and neut. -e, pl. -an. The form-groups are: α. OE. (Anglian) *teoʓoða, -eða, -ða (Northumb. teiʓ(e)ða, teiða), corresp. to OFris. tegotha, -atho, -etha, OS. tegotho, -atho (MLG. tegede, teigede, LG. tegede, tegde), going back through *teʓūþo, to OTeut. *teʓunþo-. Its mod. repr. is TITHE. β. The ordinary OE. (WSax.) téoða (early ME. tēþe), app. from *teoh(e)ða, going back through *tehūþo, to *tehunþo-, with h in place of ʓ under the influence of the cardinal *tehun. This form is found only in Eng.; it survived dialectally to the 16th c. as tēthe. γ. Early ME. tēnde (later tend, teind), appearing in Ormin c. 1200, but probably existing earlier, also in Kentish in the Ayenbite 1340. It corresponds in consonants to OFris. tîanda, tîenda (Du. tiende), OS. tehando, OHG. zehanto; Goth. taihunda, Norse tíonde, tíunde. δ. Early ME. tenðe (tyenðe, teonðe), tenþe, now TENTH, a new formation from ten with suffix -TH. ε. ME. tent, also from ten, with suffix -t. Now dial., chiefly northern and north midl. See Note below.]

  The ordinal numeral corresponding to the cardinal number TEN; that which comes next to the ninth.

  A.  adj. 1. In concord with a substantive expressed or understood.

  α.  1 Anglian. teoʓoða (in teoʓoðian TITHE v.), teoʓeða, teoʓða; Northumb. (teʓða: in teʓðiʓan TITHE v.), teiʓða, teiða, 2–3 tiȝeðe, 3 tiȝðe, 4–5 tiþo, tyþe [4–9 tithe, tythe, etc.: see TITHE sb.].

a. 900.  trans. Bæda’s Hist., V. xxii[i] § I. Ðy teoʓeþan [v.r. teoðan] dæʓe Iunius monþes.

c. 950.  O. E. Martyrol. (1900), 80. On þone teoʓðan [MS. C. teoðan] dæʓ þæs monðes. Ibid., 116. On ðone teoʓeþan [MS. C. teoðan] dæʓ, þæs monðes.

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., John i. 39. Tid uæs suelce ðio teiʓða [Ags. G. teoðe tid]. Ibid., Matt. Prolog. X Canon. Skeat 3, l. 18. In regula ða teiða.

c. 1250.  Tiȝðe [see A. 3].

1297.  R. Glouc. (Rolls), 8935. Het was ido in þe teþe [v.rr. teoþe, tenþe] ȝer of þe kinges kinedom, & enleue hondied & þe tiþe, þat vr louerd an-erþe com.

c. 1375.  Tyþe [see A. 3].

  β.  1 téoða, téða, 2 tioðe, tieðe, 3–4 teoþe, teothe, teþe.

c. 900.  trans. Bæda’s Hist., V. xxii[i]. § 1. Þy teoðan [Ca. teoʓeþan] dæʓe Iunius monþes. Ibid. Teðan [see A. 3].

c. 955.  O. E. Chron., an. 955. He ricsade teoþe healf ʓear.

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Gen. viii. 5. And þa wætera … wanedon oþ þæne teoþan monþ.

a. 1175.  Cott. Hom., 219. Swa fele þe me mihte þat tioðe hape fulfellen.

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 137. Þe tieðe [wise] is þat michele hereword þat ure helend him gaf.

c. 1290.  S. Eng. Leg., I. 76/205. In þe teoþe ȝere also.

a. 1300.  Fall & Passion, 15, in E. E. P. (1862), 13. For þe prude of lucifer þe teþe angle fille in to helle.

c. 1315.  Shoreham, III. 329. Þe teþe hest þe for-bet Wyl tou oþer mann þynge.

1387.  Teþe [see A. 2].

  γ.  2–5 tende, 4 teinde, teynde, 4–5 tend, teind, 5–6 teynd [8 tiend, etc.: see TEIND].

c. 1200.  Ormin, 4518. Þe tende bodeword wass sett þurrh Godd forr þine nede. Ibid., 12745. Summ itt off þatt daȝȝ þe tende time wære.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 3141. Ðe tende dai it sulde ben laȝt, And ho(l)den in ðe tende naȝt.

1340.  Hampole, Pr. Consc., 3990. Þe tend [token] es of þe grete dome final.

1340.  Ayenb., 2. Þe tende godes heste. Ibid., 13. Þe tende article is þellich.

13[?].  Teind [see ε].

1375.  Barbour, Bruce, IV. 460. On the tend day … the king … Arivit.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst., i. 144. Thou art fallen, that was the teynd, ffrom an angell to a feynd.

  δ.  2 tenðe (tyenðe), 2–4 teonðe, 4 tenþe (tentþe, tennyth), 4–6 tenthe, 4–5 tienthe, 5– tenth.

a. 1150.  MS. (in Anglia, XI. 370). On þan tenðen dæiʓe.

a. 1175.  Cott. Hom., 219. Þat teonðe werod abreað. Ibid. Þa wes þes tyenðes [ed. tyendes] hapes alder swiþe feir isceapen.

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 117. Þe teonðe [ed. teouðe] unþeau is þet biscop beo ʓemeles.

c. 1380.  Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 354. Þe tentþe [ed. tenteþ] propirte þat suiþ. Ibid. (1382), John i. 39. The our was as the tenthe.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. xxxiii. (Bodl. MS.). In the moneþ of September … on tenþe dai of þat moneþ.

1480.  Caxton, Tienthe [see quot. 1387 in A. 2].

1495.  Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R., IX. xxxiii. 369. The tenth daye of Septembre.

1526.  Tindale, John i. 39. It was about the tenthe [1539 tenth] houre.

1530.  Palsgr., 372/1. Dixiesme, tenthe.

1599.  Shaks., Hen. V., I. ii. 77. King Lewes the Tenth.

1828.  Scott, F. M. Perth, xiii. Not a man claiming in the tenth degree of kindred but must repair to the brattach of his tribe.

  ε.  4– tent (Sc. 5–6 teynt).

13[?].  Cursor M., 515 (Cott.). Þe tent [v.rr. tende, teind] ordir for to fulfill.

c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 4480. To saile somyn vnto Troy … And the tent yere truly … Þere worship to wyn.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, XI. vi. 156. The Grekis conquest … prolongit was quhill the tent ȝeir.

1562.  Winȝet, Cert. Tractates, ii. Wks. (S.T.S.), I. 18. The tent day of Marche, 1561.

1657.  Sir W. Mure, Hist. Rowallane, Wks. (S.T.S.), II. 251. 1415, the tent year of his governale.

1905.  [Tent is now the local form in Scotland, most of England down to Shropsh., Worcester, Leicester, Lincolnsh., and parts of Ulster. See Wright, Eng. Dial. Gram., 269.]

  2.  The last of each row or series of ten; each or every tenth individual or part.

c. 890–901.  Laws K. Ælfred, Introd. c. 38. Þine teoðan sceattas & þine frumripan … aʓif þu Gode.

a. 1000.  Cædmon’s Gen., 2122 (Gr.). Ðæs hereteames ealles teoðan sceat Abraham sealde Godes biscope.

1297.  R. Glouc. (Rolls), 6713. & tolde of hom þe teþe out, & þe nine slou.

1387.  Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 395. Al þe teþe [Caxton (1480) tienthe] londe, þat þe kyng hadde assigned him.

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot. (Rolls), III. 384. Confermit wes with the paip of the new … That king Dauid the tent penny suld haif.

1551.  Crowley, Pleas. & Pain, 343. The tenth increase by sea and lande.

1617.  Moryson, Itin., II. 37. Disarming the souldiers and executing the tenth man.

1759.  Hist., in Ann. Reg., 55, note. The French court have stopt the payment of … the rents created on the two sols per pound of the tenth penny.

1844.  Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., xi. In 1205 a Parliament … ordered every tenth knight to be raised and mounted at the charge of the other nine.

  b.  Tenth wave: every tenth wave was formerly held to be larger than the nine preceding waves; hence allusively. (Cf. DECUMAN 1.)

1585.  Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 400/1. Fluctus decumanus, the tenth waue, that is a mighty, huge, violent and great waue or surge.

1628.  Le Grys, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, 297. This tenth waue will either put an end to the storme, or sinke my beaten Barke.

1752.  Young, Brothers, IV. i. This, Fate, is thy tenth wave, and quite o’erwhelms me.

1884.  Harper’s Mag., Aug., 472/1. A mighty tenth wave of cheers and cries.

  3.  Tenth part († deal, † dole), any one of the ten equal parts into which a whole may be divided.

854.  Charter of Æthelwolf, in Birch, Cart. Sax., 11. 80. Ða ða he teoðode ʓynd eall his cyne rice ðone teoðan dæl ealra his landa.

a. 900.  trans. Bæda’s Hist., IV. xxx. [xxix.] § 4. Ealra wæstma & æppla & hræʓla ðone teoðan [Ca. teðan] dæl for Gode to ælmessum ðearfum sealde.

971.  Blickl. Hom., 35. We sceolan … syllan þone teoþan dæl ure worldspeda.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 6125. Off all þatt god te birrþ þin Godd Þe tende dale brinngenn.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 895. Habram ȝaf him ðe tiȝðe del Of alle [h]is biȝete.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 20026. A thusand yeir moght i noght reke … Til tend [v.rr. tende, tenþe] part of hir louing.

c. 1350.  Will. Palerne, 4715. What wise i miȝte quite þe tenþedel.

c. 1375.  E. E. Allit. P., B. 216. Bot þer he tynt þe tyþe dool of his tour ryche.

c. 1400.  Maundev. (Roxb.), xix. 87. Vnnethes will any Cristen man suffer half so mykill, ne þe tende parte.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst., i. 257. The ten [v.r. teynd] parte felle downe with me. Ibid., xx. 277. Of the tresure that to vs fell, the tent parte euer with me went.

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. ii. 95. Discharging lesse then the tenth part of one.

Mod.  Not a tenth part of his income.

  B.  absol. and sb. [Orig. the adj. used elliptically or absolutely, and declined as adj., pl. þa teoðan; but from c. 1200, treated as sb. with pl. (tiȝeþes, tithes, tethes, tendes, tenthes) tenths. In sense 1 b, form α was retained in standard Eng., and form γ in Scotland and north. Eng., giving TITHE and TEIND, q.v. for these differentiated uses.]

  1.  A tenth part (A. 3) of anything; any one of ten equal parts into which a whole may be divided.

  Submerged tenth (i.e., of the population): see SUBMERGED.

a. 1300–c. 1475.  [see TEIND].

1600.  W. Watson, Decacordon (1602), 139. Neither all, nor halfe, nor third, nor tenths of all shall be saued.

1692.  Locke, Lower. Interest, 52. Money now is ⁹/₁₀ less worth than it was the former year.

1776.  Adam Smith, W. N. (1791), III. V. ii. 263. In the Venetian territory all the arable lands which are given in lease to farmers are taxed at a tenth of the rent.

1707.  Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 97. 1 Foot 5 Inches and 2 tenths of an Inch.

1873.  Leland, Egypt. Sketch Bk., 291. Englishmen of culture, who have not seen one-tenth of the great cathedrals of their own country.

1909.  Daily Chron., 14 July, 4/7. There are things in the world that you can get for a tenth of a penny.

  b.  spec. A tenth part of produce or profits, or of the estimated value of personal property, appropriated as a religious or ecclesiastical due, a royal subsidy, etc.

  In the ecclesiastical use, † (a) orig. = TITHE, TEIND. (b) spec. The tenth part of the annual profit of every living in the kingdom, originally paid to the pope, but by Act 26 Hen. VIII., c. 3 (1534), transferred to the crown, and afterwards made a part of the fund known as Queen Anne’s Bounty (BOUNTY 5 a). As a royal subsidy or aid formerly levied, see quot. 1765, and cf. FIFTEENTH B. 1.

[a. 1100.  Laws of Athelstan, I. § 2. Ic ðe wille ʓesyllan mine teoþan. Ibid., § 3. ʓif we ure teoðan ʓesyllan nyllaþ, us ða nyʓon dælas biþ ætbrædene, & se teoþa an us biþ to laf.

c. 1200.  Tiȝeþes: see TITHE B. 1.

c. 1250.  Tiȝeþes: see ibid.

a. 1300–c. 1450:  see TEIND.]

1474.  Caxton, Chesse, III. i. (1883), 77. That they rendre and gyue to god the tienthes of her goodes.

1496–7.  [see FIFTEENTH B. 1].

1535–6.  Act 27 Hen. VIII., c. 42. The said firste frutes and tenthe.

1560.  Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 39 b. The fyrst fruictes, & the tenthes.

1587.  Harrison, England, II. i. (1877), I. 24. To returne to our tenths, a paiement first as deuised by the pope.

1587.  Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1378/1. An vniuersall taxation was made in nature of a tenth and fifteenth ouer all the countrie of Kent.

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. ix. (1623), 628. The Tenths of the Clergie … should haue been receyued.

1686.  trans. Chardin’s Coronat. Solyman, 147. They pay both Tribute and Tenths.

1765.  Blackstone, Comm., I. viii. 308. Tenths and fifteenths were temporary aids issuing out of personal property, and were formerly the real tenth or fifteenth part of all the movables belonging to the subject. Originally the amount was uncertain, but was reduced to a certainty in the eighth year of Edward III., when new taxations were made of every township, borough, and city in the kingdom, and recorded in the Exchequer.

1792.  A. Young, Trav. France, 537. No such thing was known in any part of France … as a tenth: it was always a twelfth, or a thirteenth, or even a twentieth of the produce.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xv. III. 557. The hereditary revenue was derived from the rents of the royal domains, from the first fruits and tenths of benefices [etc.].

  † 2.  Every tenth number (below a hundred) in the natural series of numbers; pl. the multiples of ten, the ‘tens.’ Obs.

1543.  Recorde, Ground of Artes, 136. These be all the nombers from 1 to 10, and then all the tenthes within 100. Ibid., 136 b. Loke how you did expresse single vnities and tenthes in the lefte hande, so must you expresse vnities and tenthes of hundredes, in the ryghte hande. Ibid. So the fourme of euery tenthe in the lefte hande serueth [in the ryghte hand] to expresse lyke nomber of thousandes, so y^e fourme of 40 standeth for 4000.

  3.  Mus. A note ten diatonic degrees above or below a given note (both notes being counted); the interval between, or consonance of, two notes ten diatonic degrees apart.

1597.  Morley, Introd. Mus., 71. Phi. Which distances do make vnperfect consonants? Ma. A third, a sixt, and their eightes: a tenth, a thirteenth [etc.].

1694.  Holder, Harmony, iv. (1731), 40. A Tenth ascending is an Octave above the Third.

1869.  Ouseley, Counterp., xvi. 122. Double counterpoint at the tenth is that in which either of the parts is transposed a tenth, the other remaining unmoved.

1880.  C. H. H. Parry, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 670/1. The use of tenths in this example [of ‘Diaphony’ of the 10th century] is remarkable, and evidently unusual, for Guido of Arezzo,… a full century later, speaks of the ‘symphonia vocum’ in his Antiphonarium, and mentions only fourths, fifths, and octaves.

  C.  Comb.: tenthmeter, a meter divided by the tenth power of ten (= one ten-millionth of a millimeter); tenth-rate a., of the tenth rate or relative quality, very inferior; so tenth-remove a.

1876.  G. F. Chambers, Astron., X. iii. 848. The wave-lengths of the principal Fraunhofer lines expressed in *tenthmetres, a tenthmetre being the 1–10¹⁰ of a metre.

1829.  C. Sprague, Curiosity, 11.

1834.  Tait’s Mag., I. 440/1. He tears himself away from the smiles of a tenth-rate figurante of the Academie Royale.

1889.  Spectator, 9 Nov., 626/2. A people seeking nothing but material prosperity of the tenth-rate kind.

1820.  Keat, Lett to Fanny Brawne, Wks. 1899, 434. Any circumstances which are at all likely, at a *tenth remove.

1905.  Westm. Gaz., 28 March, 4/1. Constable is too remote and difficult, but a tenth-remove derivative, properly browned, will serve their turn.

  [Note. The etymological history of some of the prec. forms (as in other numerals) presents points of which the explanations are more or less conjectural. The direct OTeut. repr. of Indo-Eur. *dekmto·s was by Verner’s Law *teʓunðos; with this the Gothic taihunda, OS. tehando, OHG. zehanto, agree, except in having h for g, apparently under the influence of the cardinal *tehun, -an. The OTeut. *teʓunþo-, whence OS. and OFris. tegotho, -a, OAnglian te(o)ʓoþa, implies a pre-Teut. *dekm·tos, with shifted stress (implied also in some other ordinals). Assimilation of this form also to the cardinal would give *tehunþo-, whence *tehủþa, teoh(o)ða, téoða. The history of tēnde is more uncertain: the four ordinals, sefende, eȝtende, neȝende, tēnde, in ME., Northern and Kentish, form a group of which only the first is known in OE., repr. by siofunda, seofonda, in the Lindisf. and Rushw. glosses. Siofunda, like Goth. *sibunda, OS. siðundo, OHG. sibunto, represents an OTeut. siðunðo-, Indo-Eur. sep(t)mto·s. OE. niʓenda (a. 1066), OS. nigundo, OHG. niunto, Goth. niunda, had prob. a parallel history. The ME. ehtende appears to have been conformed in its ending to sefende; and tende, from its late appearance, was prob. formed from tēn on the same model. Ten-th has the suffix which in OE. appears in feorða, seofoða, cahtoða, niʓoða, teoʓeða, and which has now been extended to all the ordinals from fourth onward. On the other hand, ten-t has the form of the suffix which was regular in OE. fīfta (OS. and OFris. fīfto, -ta, OHG. fimfto, Goth. fimfta, OTeut. *fimfto-.), and sixta (OS. and OHG. sehsto, Goth. saihsta, OTeut. seχsto-), which in OE. was also used in enlefta (ellefta) and twelfta, and in North. and North-Midld. dialects has since been extended to all the ordinals from fourt to hundert.]