tile

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   cover with tiles

   tile the wall and the floor of the bathroom

2. 2
   noun

   A regularly-shaped slab of clay or other material, affixed to cover or decorate a surface, as in a roof-tile, glazed tile, stove tile, carpet tile, etc.

   Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.

3. 3
   noun

   A rectangular graphic.

   Each tile within the map consists of 256 × 256 pixels.

4. 4
   noun

   Any of various flat cuboid playing pieces used in certain games, such as dominoes, Scrabble, or mahjong.

   One hot summer day in the Chinese city of Nan-ning, I wandered through a park of lotus leaves and exotic flowers to a pagoda where ancient women sat, drowsily, happily playing mahjongg amidst the scent of flowers, and that excellent sound of clicking tiles enchanted me; I was far from home, but that long slow summer afternoon with the mah-jongg sounds brought me back to my own continent and specifically to Mexicali, whose summer tranquillity never ends.

5. 5
   noun

   A stiff hat.

   Tile - Tile, a Hat.

6. 6
   verb

   To cover with tiles.

   The handyman tiled the kitchen.

7. 7
   verb

   To protect from the intrusion of the uninitiated.

   to tile a Masonic lodge

8. 8
   noun

   a flat thin rectangular slab (as of fired clay or rubber or linoleum) used to cover surfaces

Etymology

From Middle English tile, tyle, tigel, tiȝel, teȝele, from Old English tieġle, tiġle, tiġele (“tile, brick”), from Proto-West Germanic *tigulā (“tile, brick”), from Proto-Germanic *tigulǭ (“tile, brick”), from Latin tēgula, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”). Doublet of tegula. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tichel (“tile”), Dutch tichel (“brick”), tegel (“tile”), German Ziegel (“brick, roof tile”), Luxembourgish Zill (“brick, tile”), Danish tegl (“brick”), Faroese tigul (“tile”), Icelandic tigl (“brick, tile”), Norwegian Nynorsk tegl (“brick, roof tile”), Swedish tegel (“…