tile
/taɪl/US/ˈtaɪ.əl/
tile 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.
Noun
tile (plural tiles)
- 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.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
- A rectangular graphic.
- Each tile within the map consists of 256 × 256 pixels.
- Sprites and tiles that are hidden in the prototype ROM file can be recovered.
- 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...2005, William T. Vollmann, “They Came Out Like Ants!”, in Dave Eggers, editor, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 (Literature), Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 298
- A stiff hat.
- Tile - Tile, a Hat.1865, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions
- Dressed in style, brand-new tile, And your father's old green tie on.1911, Charles Collins, Fred E. Terry and E.A. Sheppard, "Any Old Iron", British Music Hall song
- A Lego piece that is 1/3 the height of a brick, and is smooth without studs on top.
Verb (1)
tile (third-person singular simple present tiles, present participle tiling, simple past and past participle tiled)
- To cover with tiles.
- The handyman tiled the kitchen.
- White marble tiled the bathroom.
- To arrange in a regular pattern, with adjoining edges (applied to tile-like objects, graphics, windows in a computer interface).
- To optimize (a loop in program code) by means of the tiling technique.
- To seal a lodge against intrusions from unauthorised people.
Verb (2)
tile (third-person singular simple present tiles, present participle tiling, simple past and past participle tiled)
- To protect from the intrusion of the uninitiated.
- to tile a Masonic lodge
- tile the door
tile meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
tile in Hindi
- sheet of ceramic or fired clay to cover surfaces
- टाइल ṭāil
tile in Tamil
- கூரை ஓடு, பதிகல்
tile in Marathi
- tile
- कौल kaul
tile in Urdu
- sheet of ceramic or fired clay to cover surfaces
- ٹائِل ṭāil, بَلاط balāt
More languagesFewer languages
- tile in Bengali
- টালি ṭali
- tile in Telugu
- పెంకు peṅku
- tile in Malayalam
- ടൈൽ ṭail
- tile in Kannada
- ಓಡು, ಒಡಿಲು, ಹಂಚು, ಹೆಂಚು
- tile in Punjabi
- ਟਾਇਲ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- tile in Gujarati
- લાદી lādī
- tile in Odia
- ଟାଇଲ୍ ṭāil
- tile in Nepali
- टाइल ṭāil
- tile in Arabic
- قِرْمِيدَة qirmīda, قِرْمِيد qirmīd, بَلَاط balāṭ, قَرْمَدَ qarmada
- tile in Malay
- jubin
- tile in Thai
- กระเบื้อง grà-bʉ̂ʉang
- tile in Vietnamese
- ngói, đá lát, gạch, mảnh
- tile in Myanmar
- အုတ်ကြွပ် utkrwap
- Dhivehi
- ތަށިމުށި taṣimuṣi, އީޓު īṭu
Examples of tile in a sentence
- He had to re-lay the tiles because the cement was too dry.
- I dropped my glass; the water spread quickly over the tiled floor.
- The tiles were wearing thin due to years of children's feet.
Forms of tile
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tiles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tiles |
| present participle | tiling |
| past participle | tiled |
| past | tiled |
| alternative form | tyle |
Origin of tile
From Middle English tile, tyl, tigel, tiȝel, teȝele, from Old English tiġele, tieġle, tiġle (“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 (“brick, tile”), Asturian teya (“tile”), Catalan teula (“tile”), French tuile (“tile”), Galician telha, tella (“roof tile”), Italian tegola (“roof tile”), Mirandese teilha (“roof tile”), Portuguese telha (“roof tile”), Spanish teja (“roof tile”), Belarusian цэ́гла (céhla, “brick”), Czech cihla (“brick”), Polish cegła (“brick”), Serbo-Croatian cígla (“brick”), Ukrainian це́гла (céhla, “brick”), Finnish tiili (“brick, tile”).
See tiler (“doorkeeper at a Masonic lodge”).
Words formed from tile
- adaptive tile refresh
- blue-tile fever
- creasing tile
- draintile
- Dutch tile
- encaustic tile
- field tile
- floating wood tile
- floor tile
- girih tile
- glazed tile
- metatile
- microtile
- monotile
- out on the tiles
- pantile
- paving tile
- pill tile
- prototile
- quarry tile
- reflet tile
- rep-tile
- rest tile
- ridge tile
- roofing tile
- roof tile
- rooftile
- subway tile
- supertile
- tilebased
- tileboard
- tilefish
- tileless
- tilelike
- tile loose
- tilemaker
- tilemaking
- tilemap
- tilemapped
- tilemapping
- tile-matching game
- tile ore
- tile red
- tilery
- tile saw
- tileset
- tilestone
- tile stove
- tile tracking
- tilewise
- tilework
- tileworks
- tileyard
- Truchet tile
- undertile
- vinyl composition tile
- Wang tile
- weeping tile
- untile
- retile
Phrases with tile
Words that rhyme with tile
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- gentile
- kyle
- reptile
- sile
- smile
- Lyle
- while
- beguile
- bile
- Nile
- spile
- argyll
- awhile
- enisle
- guile
- gyle
- I'll
- last mile
- nubile
- resile
- restyle
- rile
- senile
- stile
- vile
- autogynephile
- bewile
- chile
- chyle
- Cnile
- District of Argyle
- heil
- ile
- interfile
- isle
- Japanophile
- Kabyle
- kile
- like it's going out of style
- Persophile
- redial
- refile
- revile
- Styal
- thyle
- tickler file
- wile
- worthwhile
Questions about tile
- What does tile mean?
- Tile means 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.
- What is tile in Hindi?
- Tile in Hindi is टाइल (ṭāil). See Tile meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is tile?
- Tile can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce tile?
- Tile is pronounced /taɪl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tile?
- The plural of tile is tiles.
Words near tile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tile (page history and authors); tile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कौल (Marathi) (page history and authors); పెంకు (Telugu) (page history and authors); ടൈൽ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); tile (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tile (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); લાદી (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tile.wav.
Cite this entry: “tile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.