Etymology: Middle English tinsel , tynsel , etc., probably < Old Norse *týnsla, < týna (= Middle English tin-en , tyn-en , tine v.²) to lose, perish, destroy, with the Norse suffix -sla (as in geymsla, rennsla, etc.): compare modern Norwegian tynsla destruction, damage, spilling.

Etymology: Known from late 15th cent.; < tine v.¹, Old English týn-an to enclose, fence, hedge, with Norse suffix -sl , probably taken over from northern dialect gar-sell , garsil n. (= Old Norse *gerðsl), meaning the same thing.

Etymology: The etymology, though certain in its main fact, presents difficulties of detail, owing chiefly to the want of early Old French examples. Evidently tincel , tinsel , arose out of Old French estincelle , modern French étincelle ‘a sparke or sparkle of fire, a flash’, Cotgrave ( < popular Latin *stincilla for scintilla spark), and Old French estincelé , modern French étincelé ‘sparkled, sparked, also powdered or set with sparkles’, past participle of Old French estinceler ‘to sparke, to sparkle as fire; to twinkle as a starre or Dyamond; to set thicke with sparkles’ ( < popular Latin *stincillāre for scintillāre to sparkle, glitter). In 14–15th centuries French, the s of es- had long been mute, and the pronunciation was actually as in modern French étincelle , -elé ; of this the initial e disappeared (apparently in Anglo-Norman or English) by aphesis, giving tincel(le . Our earliest examples show the word used attributively or as adjective in tinselle satin , apparently representing a French satin étincelé (with -e mute in English, as in some other words), or else the English ‘tinselled satin’ (see tinselled adj.) with d lost between l and s . Thence sense 2, tinsel alone = tinsel satin , tinsel cloth , etc. Sense 3, which is later, may represent the French noun étincelle. Tilsent and tinsin, early popular perversions, scarcely survived the 16th cent.; they also were at first attributively in tylsent satin, tynsyn satten.

Etymology: < tinsel n.¹

Etymology: < tinsel n.³ and adj.Previous versions of the OED give the stress as: ˈtinsel.