a. (sb.) Also 5–8 tythable, 5–9 titheable, 6–8 tytheable. [f. TITHE v.2 + -ABLE.]
1. Of produce: Subject to the payment of tithes.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, 56. Or heyȝ, corn, wode, fruyte, wolle, chese,… & of all manere thynges tythable.
1548. Act 2 & 3 Edw. VI., c. 13 § 3. Any beastis or other cattell tytheable.
1619. Sir J. Sempil, Sacrilege Handled, App. 39. By Tradition from their Fathers, all things growing out of the earth, and fit for mans meat, are Titheable.
1632. Star Chamb. Cases (Camden), 100. Mines are not titheable by the lawe because they doe not renovare.
1737. Gentl. Mag., VII. 344. This Piece of Land is Tythe-free, That Piece is Tytheable.
1834. Brit. Husb., I. 77. The young of those, which are titheable, pay at the time of their being weaned.
2. Liable to pay tithes. rare.
1722. R. Beverley, Virginia, IV. v. § 18. 218. The Levies … are a certain Rate or Proportion of Tobacco charged upon the Head of every tithable Person…. They call all Negroes above sixteen Years of age tithable, be they male or female; and all white Men of the same Age. But Children and white Women are exempted from all Manner of Duties.
B. absol. as sb. One who or that which is subject to payment of tithes.
1680. Virginia Stat. (1823), II. 488. It is declared … that such servants soe unsold ought not to be listed as tythables that yeare.
1775. A. Burnaby, Trav., 12. There are a hundred and five thousand titheables, under which denomination are included all white males from sixteen to sixty.
1828. Examiner, 210/1. From various tenants and titheables he [the archbishop] receives some 25,000l. a-year.
1893. Nation (N. Y.), 27 April, 309/2. The population of a Virginian county … was probably considerably more than three times as great as its number of tithables.
