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Good tidings we bring to you and your kin, goes a line from the popular 16th-century carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Another carol, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (1833), speaks of "tidings of comfort and joy." Although there is nothing inherent in the meaning or origin of "tiding" that specifically pertains to Christmas (it derives via Middle English from Old English and relates to betide, meaning "to happen especially by fate"), we most often see the word in contexts pertaining to the Christmas season. The most notable usage, perhaps, occurs in Luke 2:10 of the King James Bible, when the angel delivers the news of the arrival of the Savior: "Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."
Examples of tiding in a Sentence
Daniel De Visé, USA TODAY, 19 Mar. 2025
Stock indexes opened in positive territory Wednesday, as investors awaited the latest tidings from the Federal Reserve.
—Daniel De Visé, USA TODAY, 19 Mar. 2025
But the City by the Bay was not the only one with glad tidings.
—Jeffrey Steele, Forbes, 16 Jan. 2025
The elusive founder of Gail’s dishes on everything from the controversy surrounding the quintessential London bakery to laying the blueprint for Ottolenghi’s food empire
By Bridget Arsenault
Photographs by Guillaume Bonn
Air Supply
English Yuletide
Good tidings, dear reader.
—airmail.news, 30 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for tiding
Cite this Entry
“Tiding.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tiding. Accessed 3 May. 2025.
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