Watching an old episode of Home Improvement recently,
Eavesdropping Neighbour: I was just hearing some tidbits of your conversation.
Tim: Sounds to me like you heard the whole tid.
This sounded as a dialogue writer's invention to me. Is there any known usage of the word "tid" to mean the "whole part of something" or does it have any standalone meaning?
The OED has four entries for tid, two as a noun, one as a verb and one as an adjective. None has the meaning ‘whole part of something’. The only use associated with tid-bit is obsolete. Even then it seems to be little more than a shortened form, as this definition by Johnson suggests:
Tid, adj. (tydder, Saxon), tender; soft; nice‥Titbi′t (properly tidbit; tid, tender, and bit), nice bit; nice food.
So, no, I think the writer was just playing with the word. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
