tiding

/ˈtaɪdɪŋ/

Etymology

From a merger of Middle English tiding, tidinge, from Late Old English tīdung, with Middle English tidinde, tidende, from or influenced by Old Norse tíðindi (“news, tidings”), both connected to Old English tīdan (“to befall; happen”). Though it is sometimes assumed that the form in -ind/-end is original and later assimilated to -ing, the cognates Dutch tijding and German Zeitung point to inheritance from Proto-West Germanic *tīdungō. By surface analysis, tide (“time”) + -ing.

Why this word is great

TIDING — [Noun] News or new information, often used in the plural form 'tidings'. From a merger of Middle English tiding, tidinge (from Late Old English tīdung) and Middle English tidinde, tidende (influenced by Old Norse tíðindi, "news"), both related to Old English tīdan ("to befall, happen"). Ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *tīdungō, with surface analysis as tide ("time") + -ing. Unlike "news" (a neutral, modern abstraction) or "report" (a clinical inventory of facts), "tidings" carries the weight of arrival, of something breaking upon the shore of the present. It is the messenger’s breathless pause at the threshold, the parchment unrolled by a winded courier, the distant horn sounding across a winter field—not just information, but the shudder of history being made. The word knows that all stories are, in the end, about time passing.

noun

News; new information.“For men be now tratlers and tellers of tales; What tidings at Totnam, what newis in Wales, What ſhippis are ſailing to Scalis Malis? And all is not worth a couple of nut ſhalis.”