Obs. exc. dial. and local. Forms: α. 1 téaʓ, tǽʓ, téʓ, 5 tee; β. 1 tíʓ, 5 tigh, ty, 4– tye, 5–6, 9 tie. [OE. téaʓ, téah, which agrees in forms with TIE sb. and TYE sb.2, and is treated by Bosw.-Toller and Sweet as the same word. The sense-history is unknown; the connection of the senses here included is also uncertain.]
† 1. A small box or case for jewels and other valuables; a casket. Obs.
α. c. 725. Corpus Gloss. (O.E.T.), 1300. Mantega, taeʓ. Ibid., 2010. Tehis [for techis, thecis], teʓum, fodrum.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Saints’ Lives, xxiii. 764. Þa feng se port-ʓerefa to þære teʓe and … hi uninsæʓlode.
1027–34. Laws of Cnut, II. c. 76 § 1. Hyre hordern and hyre cyste and hyre teʓe [MS. B. tæʓan].
1477. Inventory, in Lanc. Wills (1884), 4. A Tee wth other coofers.
β. c. 1050. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 443/8. Mantega, tiʓ.
1390. Gower, Conf., II. 246. Tho tok sche forth a riche Tye Mad al of gold and of Perrie, Out of the which sche nam a Ring.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 5870. Thei robbed clene al that thei founde … Off gold, siluer, & riche druri, That thei fond in coffres and ty. Ibid., 9983. Ȝoure brochis brode & al ȝoure byes That now ligges In ȝoure tyes.
c. 1425. Seven Sag. (P.), 2951. Scho … broght the rynge anoon That lay loken in hir tie [rhyme eie].
1460. Will of Spenser (Somerset Ho.). Cum duabus cistis … altera vocata spruce tigh.
1535. in Weaver, Wells Wills (1890), 116. A croke, a tye, and v silver spones.
2. Mining (Cornwall). A deep trough or box used for collecting the dross and refuse in washing ore.
1531–2. Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 8 § 1. Onelesse the saide diggar owner or washer shall make … sufficient hatches and tyes in the end of thir buddels and cordes and therin putt … all the sande stones gravell and robell digged about the inserching fynding and wasshing of the said Tynne there to be holly and suerlie kepte by the said hatches and ties oute and frome the said fresshe rivers.
1839. De la Beche, Rep. Geol. Cornw., etc., xv. 578. The tye is a long, narrow, inclined furrow, through which passes a stream of water, three or four times larger than that used in buddling.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1245. The latter is sometimes thrown away, and at others is subjected to the operation called the tie, viz., a washing upon the sloping bottom of a long trough.
3. A pit or trench from which turf or peat is dug. local (Devonsh.).
1836. A. E. Bray, Descr. Tamar & Tavy, I. xx. 348. A turf tye, that is, a pit from which they dig turfs for fuel.
1873. Q. Rev. July, 159. There are few Dartmoor turf-cutters who have not ‘zeed a whishtness’ whilst labouring in the solitary ‘ties,’ as the turf-trenches are called.
4. The stuffed case forming a mattress or pillow: = TICK sb.2 Also bed-tye, pillow-tye. (Cf. TAY, TEY.) Now dial.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 143. This Membrane … is rowled in plentifull fat, & so serueth the Kidneyes instead of a couering, of a tye, and of a soft pillow or bolster.
1847–78. [see PILLOW sb. 6].
1893. Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Zita, I. vii. 110. We’ll lift you on to a feather tye.
1898. Mrs. C. P. Penberthy, Warp & Woof Cornish life, ii. 13. The bed-tie and pillows … was … in a pawn shop…. There was the very tie, I knawed un in a minute.
5. attrib. and Comb. (in sense 2): tye-lift (see LIFT sb.2 12); tye-pit, a pit for collecting the refuse in washing ore.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 154 b. They have a tye-pit, not so much satisfying use, as relieving necessitie.
1778. W. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 16. To take up the superficial streams, by … grooves cut in the walls … of the Lode, to convey them either into the adit or tye lift of pumps.
1905. Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v. Tye (Devon.), ‘Be careful now and don’t go near the tie pit.’
