1909: tithe and tenth Mar 7, 2020

The word 'tithe' is related to the word 'tenth', which shouldn't be too surprising since it refers to a tenth of one's annual produce to be given to the clergy. However, it is not that nasal of 'teNth', disappeared in English, but that the root had assimilated already before the days of Old English ('tēoþian'). There is a proposed Proto-Germanic root for this word—*tehunþô, *tehundô—which would link 'tenth' and 'tithe' beyond just the semantic relation.

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