Sc. [? unexplained var. of TIDE sb.]
1. A fit or favorable time or season; an opportunity, occasion.
1721. Ramsay, Elegy Patie Birnie, xiii. Ibid. (1728), Fables, Fox & Rat, 40. He took the tid when Lowry was away.
1801. Macneill, Poet. Wks. (1844), 54. To catch the tids o’ life is sage, Some joys to save.
2. spec. The proper season for some agricultural operation, as harrowing or sowing; hence, suitable condition of the soil for cultivation or cropping.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 147. If it were not for fear of losing the proper opportunity (the Tid of sowing, as it is vulgarly called), the longer the wheat-seed is delayed … the better.
1825. Jamieson, Tid … 2. The condition which any soil is in for the purpose of agriculture; as, ‘The ground’s no in tid.’
c. 1830. in Stephens, Bk. Farm (1844), I. 537. A tid (or proper condition of the ground for harrowing) cannot be taken advantage of on the drained furrow until the other is dry.
1842. J. Aiton, Domest. Econ. (1857), 79. The ‘tids’ of seed-time, hay-time, and harvest, are in a great measure lost.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric., Gloss. (E.D.S.).
3. A humor, mood, or fancy to do something.
a. 1774. Fergusson, Farmer’s Ingle, Poems (1845), 38. Tak tent, case Crummy tak her wonted tids, And ca’ the laiglen’s treasure [i.e., the new milk] on the ground.
1825. Jamieson, s.v., To tak the tid, to be seized with a perverse or ungovernable humour.
1890. J. Service, Thir Notandums, viii. 48. I’m no i’ the tidd the noo.
