tithing

Definitions

• A tithe or tenth in its various senses, (particularly):
• (dialectal) Ten sheaves of wheat (originally set up as such for the tithe-proctor).
• (historical) A body of households (originally a tenth of a hundred or ten households) bound by frankpledge to collective responsibility and collective punishment for each other's behavior.
• (historical) A part of the hundred as a rural division of territory.
• (obsolete) Decimation: the killing of every tenth person or (less often) the killing of every person except each tenth.