Etymologically
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tile

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:43. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /taɪl/[1]
  • US: /ˈtaɪ.əl/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English tile, a contracted form of earlier tigel,[2][3] inherited from Old English tigele, also tigule,[4][5][6] inherited from Proto-West Germanic *tegala,[4][7] a prehistoric borrowing from Latin tēgula (“a roof tile”),[4][7][8][2] from tegō (“to cover”).[4][8][9][10] Watkins and the American Heritage Dictionary trace the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”),[11][8] the root of English thatch and deck.[7][2] The other Germanic languages borrowed the Latin word in the same way: Old Saxon tiegla, Middle Dutch tiegel, Dutch tegel, Old High German ziagala and ziagal, German Ziegel and Old Norse tigl.[2][5][10] The Latin noun is also the source of Italian tegola and French tuile.[8][10][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thin slab of baked clay for covering roofs: Old English tigule glosses Latin tegula in the Corpus Glossary.[4][6] Old English also used the word for a brick, as in the Old English Orosius, where a wall is built of tigelan.[4][6]

Semantic evolution

In Old English and early Middle English the word also meant "brick", before brick came into use;[8][4] that sense lasted until 1481.[4] From Chaucer's Summoner's Tale (about 1386) tiles were also laid on floors and walls,[4] and hollow or half-round tiles were used to drain land and roads from 1830.[4] Weekley notes that the older native roof covering was thatch, while slate is a French word.[12] Johnson (1755) defined tiles as thin plates of baked clay used to cover houses.[13] From 1960 the name passed to squares of floor or wall covering of other materials, such as carpet or cork tiles.[4] In slang a tile was a hat from 1813,[4] because it sits on top of one's "roof";[14] the phrase to have a tile loose, to be slightly crazy, is recorded from 1846, and on the tiles, on a spree, from 1887, after the night roaming of cats.[4] The verb, to cover with tiles, came from the noun;[4][8] in Freemasonry, usually spelled tyle, it means to guard a lodge from intruders, a back-formation from tiler, the doorkeeper.[4][15] In Yorkshire and the West Country dialect a tile was also a roofing slate, and the plural meant the roof.[16]

Timeline

  • Old English – tigule, tigele, a roof tile; also a brick (until 1481).[4][6]
  • before 1325 – the contracted form tile, in the Cursor Mundi.[2]
  • c. 1386 – a tile for paving floors or lining walls, in Chaucer.[4]
  • late 14th century – the verb, to cover with tiles.[8][2]
  • 1467 – the OED's first quotation for the verb.[4]
  • 1741 – in metallurgy, a small flat piece of baked earth used to cover vessels.[4]
  • 1762 – Freemasonry, to guard a lodge from intrusion.[4]
  • 1813 – slang, a hat.[4]
  • 1830 – a drain tile.[4]
  • 1846 – to have a tile loose, to be slightly crazy.[4]
  • 1887 – on the tiles, on a spree.[4]
  • 1960 – a square of floor or wall covering of another material, such as carpet.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A thin flat or curved piece of fired clay, stone, concrete or other material, used with others to cover a roof, floor or wall: She chose blue tiles for the bathroom.
  2. Such pieces collectively.
  3. A short pipe of earthenware, concrete or plastic laid with others to form a drain.
  4. A flat block used as a playing piece in mah-jong and other games.
  5. (Brit., old-fashioned slang) A hat.
  6. on the tiles: (informal) out on a spree of drinking or debauchery.

Verb

  1. To cover a roof, floor or wall with tiles: They tiled the kitchen floor last spring.
  2. (Freemasonry) To guard a lodge or meeting from intrusion so that its proceedings stay secret.
  3. To lay drainage tiles in land.

Word family

  • tiler
  • tilelike
  • pantile
  • tilery
  • retile
  • quarry tile

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)