jan 1, 1593 - tinsel

Description:

A regional word for brushwood which was used in fencing. Wright found it in parts of north Wales and the midlands, and the OED has an example in Nottinghamshire in 1486. In 1436 Wakefield tenants were charged with felling and carrying away ‘green wood called <i>Tynsill</i> in the Out-wood’ (WCR15/192) and a Bradfield court roll for 1440 has the latinised form <i>tynsellum</i>, which the editor translated as ‘rails’ (TWH26/11). The word was in regular employment in Yorkshire, and Jackson quotes a document dated 1473-4 in which <i>tynsell</i> was to be used for making and repairing a weir and mill dam (JB123). Occasionally it occurred as a verb: 1518-9 <i>to tynsell, to hegge Aboute the same mese</i>, Tong (Mss3/3). In a later lease it was linked with ‘trouse’: 1593 <i>liberty to cut down and carry away</i> [certain wood] <i>leaving … sufficient crops, lops, bushes, trowse and tynsell for the mowndinge, fencing and hedging of the demised premises</i>, Bingley (LRS2/7). It can be compared with ‘tinnet’ found in other English regions and with ‘garsil’, another Yorkshire word for brushwood which has a similar suffix. It may be the origin of place-names such as Tinsel in Midgley and even Tinshill in Adel (PNWR).

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