tenth

From Middle English. Old English had tēoþa (origin of Modern English tithe), but the force of analogy to the cardinal number "ten" caused Middle English speakers to recreate the regular ordinal and re-insert the nasal consonant. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *tehundô. Equivalent to ten (numeral) +‎ -th (suffix forming ordinals).

• (UK, US) enPR: tĕnth, IPA^(key): /tɛnθ/, [tʰɛn̪θ]
  • IPA^(key): /tɪnθ/ (pin–pen merger)

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛnθ
• Rhymes: -ɪnθ (pin–pen merger)

tenth (not comparable)

1. The ordinal numeral form of ten; next in order after that which is ninth.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, “The Substance of the Shadow”, in A Tale of Two Cities, book III (The Track of a Storm), London: Chapman and Hall, […], OCLC 906152507, page 214:

     These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity.

2. Being one of ten equal parts of a whole.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Ezekiel 45:11:

     The Ephah and the Bath shal be of one measure, that the Bath may containe the tenth part of an Homer, and the Ephah the tenth part of an Homer: the measure thereof shall be after the Homer.

• 10th, 10^th
• tithe (obs.)
• (in epithets) X

tenth (plural tenths)

1. The person or thing coming next after the ninth in a series; that which is in the tenth position.
2. One of ten equal parts of a whole.
   • 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.

3. (music) The interval between any tone and the tone represented on the tenth degree of the staff above it, as between one of the scale and three of the octave above; the octave of the third.
4. (Britain, law, historical, in the plural) A temporary aid issuing out of personal property, and granted to the king by Parliament; formerly, the real tenth part of all the movables belonging to the subject.

• (one of ten parts): decim, decima, decimate, tithe, titheling, tithing (all obs.)
• (musical interval or note): decima (obs.)

tenth (third-person singular simple present tenths, present participle tenthing, simple past and past participle tenthed)

1. To divide by ten, into tenths.
   • 1832 The Practical Measurer, Containing the Uses of Logarithms, and Gunter's Scale

     A regular cistern may be inched or tenthed by the rule given for inching or tenthing the back, copper, or cooler, which inching or tenthing should be entered in a table book for use.