[a spurious word; being a misreading in Harrison of the word túnman in a MS. c. 1570 of Cnut’s Forest Laws (c. 1185), whence app. in Manwood and in Spelman, 1664, and thence in later writers, and taken to repr. L. minūtus homo (as if f. TINE adj. ‘very small’ + man). (The actual OE. túnman is found in an 11th-c. Vocab. (Wr.-Wülcker, 332/22), rendering L. villanus villein.)
c. 1185. Cnut’s Constit. de Foresta, § 4, Camb. MS. c. 1570 (Liebermann 621). Sub horum iterum quolibet sint duo minutorum hominum, quos tunman [or ? timman] Angli dicunt; hii nocturnam curam et ueneris et uiridis, tum seruilia opera subibunt. So 1577 Harrison, England, II. xix. (1877), I. 315 [the same, with Tineman and hi]. 1592 transl., in Manwood, Brefe Collect. Lawes of Forest, Againe, vnder euery one of these meane men, let there be two of the least men of account of the Forest (which Englishmen do call ‘Tynemen’): these persons shall vndertake the seruile labour, and also the night charge of Vert and Venison.
1598. Manwood, Laws Forest (1615), 2 (quoting prec. Latin), margin. Tineman. These are they that now are called Foresters or Keepers.
1670. Blount, Law Dict., Tineman or Tienman, was of old a Petty Officer in the Forest, who had the Nocturnal care of Vert and Venison, and other servile employments.
1906. Doyle, Sir Nigel, x. The tineman and verderers have not forgotten me yet.]
