Tidy

How to spell tidy

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tidy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tidy mean?

1. adjectiveArranged neatly and in good order.
2. verbTo make a place neat by putting things in order.

Tidy in a sentence

• adjective

  She kept her desk tidy even during the busiest weeks.

• verb

  He likes to tidy the living room before guests arrive.

• adjective

  A tidy kitchen makes cooking dinner far less stressful.

• verb

  Please tidy your workspace at the end of each shift.

Where does tidy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tidy comes from the Old English word tīd, meaning 'time' or 'season', the same root that gives us the modern word 'tide'. By the 1200s the form 'tidy' meant 'timely' or 'in good condition for the season', much as a crop might be described as ready at the proper time. Over the following centuries the sense drifted from 'opportune' towards 'in good order' and finally to 'neat and well arranged', which is how we use it today. The connection to 'tide' explains the spelling: the same -y ending that turned 'tide' into 'tidy' once meant 'happening at the right time'. A faint trace of the older meaning survives in the colloquial 'a tidy sum', where tidy means considerable or satisfactory rather than neat.

How the word is built

• tide (Old English tīd: time, season)
• -y (adjective suffix, originally 'timely, in season')