Definition of TILE

tile

Plural: tiles

Noun

  • a flat thin rectangular slab (as of fired clay or rubber or linoleum) used to cover surfaces
  • a thin flat slab of fired clay used for roofing
  • game equipment consisting of a flat thin piece marked with characters and used in board games like Mah-Jong, Scrabble, etc.
  • 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.
  • A rectangular graphic.
  • Any of various flat cuboid playing pieces used in certain games, such as dominoes, Scrabble, or mahjong.
  • A stiff hat.
  • A Lego piece that is 1/3 the height of a brick, and is smooth without studs on top.

Verb

Verb Forms: tiled, tiling, tiles

  • To cover a surface with thin, flat slabs of baked clay or other material.
  • cover with tiles
    • "tile the wall and the floor of the bathroom"
  • To cover with tiles.
  • 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.
  • To protect from the intrusion of the uninitiated.

Examples

  • Each tile within the map consists of 256 × 256 pixels.
  • He needed to TILE the open spaces of the Words With Friends board with his remaining letters.
  • Sprites and tiles that are hidden in the prototype ROM file can be recovered.
  • The handyman tiled the kitchen.
  • tile the door
  • to tile a Masonic lodge
  • White marble tiled the bathroom.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English tile, tyle, tigel, tiȝel, teȝele, from Old English tieġle, tiġle, tiġele (“tile; brick”), from Proto-West Germanic *tigulā, from Proto-Germanic *tigulǭ (“tile”), from Latin tēgula. Doublet of tegula.
Cognates
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tichel (“tile”), West Frisian teil, tegel, tichel (“tile”), Dutch tichel, tegel (“tile”), German Ziegel (“brick; tile”), Danish tegl (“brick”), Swedish tegel (“brick; tile”), Icelandic tigl (“tile; brick”).

Synonyms

roofing tile

Scrabble Score: 4

tile: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
tile: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
tile: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 5

tile: valid Words With Friends Word