"tide me over"

Posted by Bruce Kahl on January 28, 2004

In Reply to: "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.")

I don't think so but ya never know.
From a previous discussion we had here a while back:

Your phrase means to enable to surmount or endure a difficulty as in "money to tide us over during the emergency".

The transitive sense of the verb "tide" means to cause to float with or as if with the tide.

So when something is "tiding you over" you are, in a sense, being temporarily lifted or enabled to float over the emergency!

Main Entry: tide over
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: 2tide
Date: 1821
: to enable to surmount or endure a difficulty

Main Entry: 2tide
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): tid·ed; tid·ing
Date: 1593
intransitive senses : to flow as or in a tide : SURGE
transitive senses : to cause to float with or as if with the tide

• "Tide me over" Henry 29/January/04