titling

Etymology 1

See title.

verb

1. present participle and gerund of title

noun

1. The act of giving something a title, or of impressing the title on the back of a book.
   Then, gentlemen, not only is this a forgery, but it is a modern forgery. It is a forgery since 1806—since the date of the rebinding of the Record by Mr Thompson, when the new mode of titling was introduced. 1839, Archibald Swinton, Report of the Trial of Alexander Humphreys Or Alexander, Claiming the Title Earl of Stirling, Before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, for the Crime of Forgery, page 211
   The leather for the spine strip was onlaid with the titling and other linking features separately from the covers. 1974, Philip Smith, New Directions in Bookbinding, page 135
2. (law) A legal right to a property; holding a title.
   People took possession of the tenantless cottages to which their only titling is the holding of the key : a few of these still remain. 1888, A Handbook for Travelers in Surrey, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, page 217
   Where shifting cultivation or bush fallowing are widely practised, it is unlikely that strong pressure for titling will emerge from within the area concerned. The primary momentum for titling will probably be exogenously generated, 1976, Diana Hunt, The Social and Economic Impacts of Individual Land Titling in Mbeere, Eastern Kenya, page 12

Etymology 2

Uncertain. Superficially tit (“a small bird”) + -ling (“small”). Attested from the 16th century. Probably from Icelandic titlingr (“tit sparrow”), Old Norse titlingr (“sparrow”). Compare Old Norse tittr (“titmouse”). Also see Middle English titmose (“titmouse”).

noun

1. The hedge sparrow, dunnock, titlene, Prunella modularis.
   The Titling therefore that sitteth, being thus deceived, hatcheth the egge and bringeth up the chicke of another bird. 1601, Pliny the Elder, translated by Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World, Book X
   […]its winter note resembles the word, Tit, Tit, often repeated, which has given it the name of Titling in many parts of the country. 1821, George Graves, British Ornithology, SYLVIA MODULARIS, page 540
2. The meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis).
   In the North this is so commonly observed, that the cuckoo is popularly believed to be always attended by the titling or pippet (Anthus pratensis, Bechstein), which it is further imagined, has been its step-mother and nurse from the egg; 1833, “Eagle shooting in the Alps”, in The Sportsman’s Cabinet, and Town and Country Magazine, page 126
3. (obsolete, in customhouses) Stockfish.
   […]Stock-fish—Titling—Cropling—Lub-fish. You should have noted that they are all, nevertheless, to be entered as titlings. How many inches long is a titling? 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy