Tienden

Tienden is a Dutch noun that occurs mainly in two senses. In mathematics and everyday language, tiende refers to the tenth part of a whole, with tienden serving as the plural form to denote tenths or tenth parts. In this sense, phrases such as tienden van het geheel denote fractional shares or portions of a quantity.

Historically, tienden also denotes a tithe, a tax or levy of one-tenth of agricultural produce, income, or earnings that was collected by a church, monastery, or feudal authority. The concept of the tithe has deep roots in medieval and early modern European law and economy, and it is frequently discussed in historical Dutch sources. In modern Dutch usage, the sense of tienden as a tithe is largely obsolete, and the term is encountered mainly in historical writings or juridical documents.

Usage notes is a concise explanation: in contemporary Dutch, the preferred way to express a tenth as a fraction is tiende or 1/10; tienden as tithe remains primarily a historical term. The plural form may still appear in academic or archival contexts when describing multiple fractions or multiple tithes as they appeared in past records.

See also: tithe, tenth, tiende.