titling

See title.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪtl̩ɪŋ/, /ˈtaɪtlɪŋ/

titling

1. present participle and gerund of title

titling (plural titlings)

1. The act of giving something a title, or of impressing the title on the back of a book.
   • 1839, Archibald Swinton, Report of the Trial of Alexander Humphreys Or Alexander, Claiming the Title Earl of Stirling, Before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, for the Crime of Forgery‎, page 211:

     Then, gentlemen, not only is this a forgery, but it is a modern forgery. It is a forgery since 1806—since the date of the rebinding of the Record by Mr Thompson, when the new mode of titling was introduced.

   • 1974, Philip Smith, New Directions in Bookbinding, page 135:

     The leather for the spine strip was onlaid with the titling and other linking features separately from the covers.

2. (law) A legal right to a property; holding a title.
   • 1888, A Handbook for Travelers in Surrey, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight‎, page 217:

     People took possession of the tenantless cottages to which their only titling is the holding of the key : a few of these still remain.

   • 1976, Diana Hunt, The Social and Economic Impacts of Individual Land Titling in Mbeere, Eastern Kenya, page 12:

     Where shifting cultivation or bush fallowing are widely practised, it is unlikely that strong pressure for titling will emerge from within the area concerned. The primary momentum for titling will probably be exogenously generated,

Uncertain. Superficially tit (“a small bird”) +‎ -ling (“small”). Attested from the 16th century. Probably from Icelandic titlingr (“tit sparrow”), Old Norse titlingr (“sparrow”). Compare Old Norse tittr (“titmouse”). Also see Middle English titmose (“titmouse”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɪtlɪŋ/

titling (plural titlings)

1. The hedge sparrow, dunnock, titlene, Prunella modularis.
   • 1601, Pliny the Elder, translated by Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World‎, Book X:

     The Titling therefore that sitteth, being thus deceived, hatcheth the egge and bringeth up the chicke of another bird.

   • 1821, George Graves, British Ornithology‎, SYLVIA MODULARIS, page 540:

     […] its winter note resembles the word, Tit, Tit, often repeated, which has given it the name of Titling in many parts of the country.

2. The meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis).
   • 1833, “Eagle shooting in the Alps”, in The Sportsman’s Cabinet, and Town and Country Magazine‎, page 126:

     In the North this is so commonly observed, that the cuckoo is popularly believed to be always attended by the titling or pippet (Anthus pratensis, Bechstein), which it is further imagined, has been its step-mother and nurse from the egg;

3. (obsolete, in customhouses) Stockfish.
   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy:

     “ […] Stock-fish—Titling—Cropling—Lub-fish. You should have noted that they are all, nevertheless, to be entered as titlings. How many inches long is a titling?”

• “titling”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “tit”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “titling²”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• Tlingit, litting, tilting