FromMiddle Englishtenth, tenthe.Old English hadtēoþa (origin of ModernEnglishtithe), 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 fromProto-Germanic*tehundô. Equivalent toten(numeral) +-th(suffix forming ordinals).
a.1776,Joseph Baretti, “Dialogue the Fortieth”, inEasy Phraseology for the Use of Those Persons Who Intend to Learn the Colloquial Part of the Italian Language[1],1835 edition, Turin: Joseph Bocca, page221:
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 thetenth year of my captivity.
The Ephah and the Bath shal be of one measure, that the Bath may containe thetenth part of an Homer, and the Ephah thetenth part of an Homer: the measure thereof shall be after the Homer.
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 totenths of a percentage point every month.
(music) Theinterval between anytone and the tone represented on the tenth degree of thestaff above it, as between one of thescale and three of theoctave above; the octave of thethird.
tenth (third-person singular simple presenttenths,present participletenthing,simple past and past participletenthed)
To divide by ten, into tenths.
1832,The Practical Measurer, Containing the Uses of Logarithms, and Gunter's Scale[2]:
A regular cistern may be inched ortenthed by the rule given for inching ortenthing the back, copper, or cooler, which inching ortenthing should be entered in a table book for use.
