Tittle (Hastings' Dictionary)

The Eng. word 'tittle' is simply a various spelling of 'title.' One of the u.ses of 'title' (after Lat. titulus in late use, and Fr. title) was to denote the stroke above an abridged word. It was thence u.sed for any trilling stroke or niiirk which distinguished one letter from another, and was chosen by Wyclif and Tindale to translate the Gr. xtpata. {\\'\l Ktpia., seo vol. ii. App. p. 151) in its only occurrences Alt 5", Lk 10'. All tho Eng.

VSS up to and including AV (1611), except the Rhemisn, spell the word with one t. So Tindale in his address to the Reader, Pentateuch (Mombert's Reprint, p.

3), ' For Wxcy which in tymes paste were wont to loke on no more scrip- 782 TITUS TITUS ture then they founde in their duns or Boch like develysh doctryne, liave yet now so narowlye loked on my translation, that there is not so moch as one I therin if it lacke a tj'lle over his lied, but they have noted it, and nomhre it unto the ignorant people for an heresye.' But, in quoting Mt o" three pages later, he spells the word ' tittle. The Gr. icep^a (lit.

' little horn ') was used by grammarians to denote the Gr. accents and any small stroke distinguishing one Heb. letter from another, as 2 from 3. On tlie importance attached to these marks by the Rabbins see Lightfoot on Mt 5'« (vol. xi. p. "99 ff.) J. Hastings.