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"tide me over"

Posted by john on January 28, 2004

"Tide" is among other things an archaic way of saying "time" as in "yuletide" = "Christmastime." (I suspect "time and tide" is a poetic repetition--they aren't two different things.) So something to "tide one over" will get you past a "tide," or "time" of need, hunger or whatever. (I hypothesize also that "tide" in this sense is cognate with German "Zeit," meaning "time.")