tight [ME] In early medieval times to call someone tight meant that they were healthy or vigorous. The senses we know today came along later, and it was not until the early to mid 19th century that the informal meanings ‘stingy’ and ‘drunk’ appeared. See also tick. A ‘tight ship’ was originally one in which ropes were tightly fastened. From this came the sense of a ship under firm discipline and control—which gives us the expression run a tight ship, not currently recorded before the 1970s. Tights are predominantly a women’s garment, but they started life as tight-fitting breeches worn by men in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Dancers and acrobats then favoured them [M19th], before the first references to women’s tights in the 1890s.