Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Tit c.1165 NthCh

• Tid(d)(e) 1170 LibEl 1559 Rental

• Thid 1221 ElyA

• Tyd(d)(e) c.1213 Fees

• Tydde Sancti Egidii 1250 Ass

• Tyd Seynt Gilles 1504 Wisb

• Tyd Seynt Gyell' t.Hy8 Rental

• Tedd Sente Gyls 1570 (inscriptiononcoverofchurchchalice)

Etymology

This name and Tydd St Mary (L), Tite , Tid 1086 DB, Tit 1094 France, Tid 1168 P, must have the same origin, but there seems no definite feature from which they might be named. They lie low on opposite sides of the Old South Eau, surrounded by flat marshland.Ekwall (DEPN) explains the names as OE  titt , “a teat, here used in the transferred sense of a slight hill…there is a slight rise near Tydd St Mary” (cf. tid , 'small cock of hay,' Lincs. dial.), but a walk from St Mary to St Giles leaves one with the impression of a dead level.Alternatively, we may well have, as suggested by Zachrisson, an i -mutated variant of tod , 'bushy mass (especially of ivy),' v. NEDs. v. tod sb. NED associates that word with EFris (LGer  dial.) todde , 'bundle, pack, small load (of hay, straw, turf, etc.)' and Sw  dial, todd , 'a conglomerated mass (especially of wool).' Zachrisson notes the further parallel of Ger  Tudden , 'Höcker, Schwellung, Wullt' (Middendorff 137), ModIcel toddi , 'small wood.' “To judge from its cognates, OE  *tydd means 'shrubs, low brushwood' or possibly 'hillock,' meanings often interchangeable in words of this type.” Here the meaning may have been 'low brushwood or 'shaggy tufts of grass, reeds, etc.,' later extended to a place where such grow. v. further StNP v, 3. St Giles from the dedication of the church.