Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TITHE, n. [Sax. teotha, probably contracted from teogetha, as the verb is teighthian, to decimate. See Ten.]

The tenth part of any thing; but appropriately, the tenth part of the increase annually arising from the profits of land and stock, allotted to the clergy for their support. Tithes are personal, predial, or mixed; personal, when accruing from labor, art, trade and navigation; predial, when issuing from the earth, as, hay, wood and fruit; and mixed, when accruing from beasts, which are fed from the ground. Blackstone.