tie

Etymology 1

From Middle English teye (“cord, chain”), from Old English tēag, tēah (“cord, chain”), from Proto-West Germanic *taugu, from Proto-Germanic *taugō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dewk-. Compare Danish tov, Icelandic taug.

noun

1. A knot; a fastening.
2. A knot of hair, as at the back of a wig.
3. A necktie (item of clothing consisting of a strip of cloth tied around the neck). See also bow tie, black tie.
4. A lace-up shoe.
   Oxford ties; Derby ties
   Coordinate term: court shoe
5. A twist tie, a piece of wire embedded in paper, strip of plastic with ratchets, or similar object which is wound around something and tightened.
6. A connection between people or groups of people, especially a strong connection.
   the sacred ties of friendship or of duty
   the ties of allegiance; the ties that bind
   No distance breaks the tie of blood. 1866, Charlotte Mary Yonge, The Prince and the Page
   The film ends with the colorful deaths of Nico's enemies after he thwarts their attempts to assassinate a U.S. Senator investigating ties between drug dealers and the CIA. 2004, Peter Bondanella, chapter 4, in Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos, pages 231–232
7. (construction) A structural member firmly holding two pieces together.
   Ties work to maintain structural integrity in windstorms and earthquakes.
8. (rail transport, US) A horizontal wooden or concrete structural member that supports and ties together rails.
9. The situation in which two or more participants in a competition are placed equally.
   Coordinate term: stalemate
   It's two outs in the bottom of the ninth, tie score.
10. (cricket) The situation at the end of all innings of a match where both sides have the same total of runs (different from a draw).
    Coordinate term: draw
11. (sports, US) An equalizer, a run, goal, point, etc which causes participants in a competition to be placed equally or have the same score(s).
    I thought José was still a point down. I thought he needed another takedown to tie and pull ahead, so I ordered José to let his man up. I looked up too late, realizing that José already scored a tie. By that point, the New Jersey champion got his ... 2010, Scott Glabb, A Saint in the City: Coaching At-risk Kids to Be Champions, Tate Publishing, page 146
    […] game in the championships shouldering a vast disadvantage and was in due course defeated by Egyetértés, one of the newcomers in the first league. Eger, the other novice in the championships, also took off successfully scoring a tie with the Ruha ETO. 1971, Budapress News Service, Budapress Bulletin, volume 10, issues 27-52, page 8
12. (sports, Britain) A meeting between two players or teams in a competition.
    The FA Cup third round tie between Liverpool and Cardiff was their first meeting in the competition since 1957.
13. (music) A curved line connecting two notes of the same pitch denoting that they should be played as a single note with the combined length of both notes.
14. (phonetic transcription) A curved line connecting two letters (⁀), used in the IPA to denote a coarticulation, as for example /d͡ʒ/.
    Wikipedia: tie (typography)
15. (statistics) One or more equal values or sets of equal values in the data set.
16. (surveying) A bearing and distance between a lot corner or point and a benchmark or iron off site.
17. (graph theory) A connection between two vertices.
18. A tiewig.

Etymology 2

From Middle English teien, teiȝen, from Old English tīġan, tīeġan, from Proto-West Germanic *taugijan, from Proto-Germanic *taugijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to tug, draw”). Cognate with Icelandic teygja.

verb

1. (transitive) To twist (a string, rope, or the like) around itself securely.
   Tie this rope in a knot for me, please.
   Tie the rope to this tree.
2. (transitive) To form (a knot or the like) in a string or the like.
   Tie a knot in this rope for me, please.
3. (transitive) To attach or fasten (one thing to another) by string or the like.
   Tie him to the tree.
4. (transitive, sometimes figurative) To secure (something) by string or the like.
   Tie your shoes.
5. (transitive, intransitive) To have the same score or position as another in a competition or ordering.
   They tied for third place.
   They tied the game.
6. (US, transitive) To have the same score or position as (another) in a competition or ordering.
   He tied me for third place.
7. (music) To unite (musical notes) with a line or slur in the notation.
8. (US, dated, colloquial) To believe; to credit.
   […] It seems they have sort of betrothal teas — can you tie it?" "Heavens!" said Mary […] 1929, Collier's, volume 84, page 56
   As the door slammed Pete turned to Hally, fuming. "Can you tie that? A little twopenny cold frightening him off." 1940, Woman's Home Companion, volume 67, numbers 1-4, page 134
9. (programming, transitive) In the Perl programming language, to extend (a variable) so that standard operations performed upon it invoke custom functionality instead.
   So, a class for tying a hash to an ISAM implementation might provide an extra method to traverse a set of keys sequentially (the “S” of ISAM), since your typical DBM implementation can't do that. 2000, Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant, Programming Perl: 3rd Edition, page 814