Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TIDE, n. [Sax. tidan, to happen; tid, time, season, opportunity, an hour; G. zeit; D. tyd; Sw. and Dan. tid. This word is from a root that signifies to come, to happen, or to fall or rush, as in betide; corresponding in sense with time, season, hour, opportunity. Tid, time, is the fall, the occasion, the event. Its original meaning is entirely obsolete, except in composition, as in Shrovetide, Whitsuntide.]

1. Time, season. Which, at the appointed tide, / Each one did make his bride. Spenser. [This sense is obsolete.]
2. The flow of the water in the ocean and seas, twice in a little more than twenty-four hours; the flux and reflux, or ebb and flow. We commonly distinguish the flow or rising of the water by the name of flood-tide, and the reflux by that of ebb-tide. There is much less tide or rise of water in the main ocean, at a distance from land, than there is at the shore, and in sounds and bays.
3. Stream; course; current; as, the tide of the times. Time's ungentle tide. Byron.
4. Favorable course. There is a tide in the aiming of men, / Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Shak.
5. Violent confluence. [Not in use.] Bacon.
6. Among miners, the period of twelve hours. Cyc.
7. Current; flow of blood. And life's red tide runs ebbing from the wound. Battle of Frogs and Mice.