tile
a thin slab or bent piece of baked clay, sometimes painted or glazed, used for various purposes, as to form one of the units of a roof covering, floor, or revetment.
any of various similar slabs or pieces, as of linoleum, stone, rubber, or metal.
tiles collectively.
a flat, rectangular playing piece used in certain games, as Scrabble and mah-jongg.
a pottery tube or pipe used for draining land.
Also called hollow tile. any of various hollow or cellular units of burnt clay or other materials, as gypsum or cinder concrete, for building walls, partitions, floors, and roofs, or for fireproofing steelwork or the like.
Informal. a stiff hat or high silk hat.
to cover with or as with tiles.
Origin of tile
1Other words from tile
- tilelike, adjective
- re·tile, verb (used with object), re·tiled, re·til·ing.
Words Nearby tile
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use tile in a sentence
The total volume is the sum of the individual volumes of all the tiles used in the triangulation.
A Mathematician’s Unanticipated Journey Through the Physical World | Kevin Hartnett | December 16, 2020 | Quanta Magazine“The tiles make a huge impact, and they definitely define the room,” she says.
Captivated by bold tile on social media? Here’s what to consider before committing to the look. | Elizabeth Mayhew | October 29, 2020 | Washington PostAssistant will now be possible to add as a tile on Tobii’s eye-tracking tablets and mobile apps, which present a large customizable grid of commonly used items that the user can look at to activate.
Google Assistant comes to gaze-powered accessible devices | Devin Coldewey | October 6, 2020 | TechCrunchIn 2014, a patient’s wife filed suit after soaked ceiling tiles fell and struck her in the head while she was sitting in the hospital lobby.
Investors Extracted $400 Million From a Hospital Chain That Sometimes Couldn’t Pay for Medical Supplies or Gas for Ambulances | by Peter Elkind with Doris Burke | September 30, 2020 | ProPublicaWithin that space, there are infinitely many ways of placing infinitely many tiles.
Computer Search Settles 90-Year-Old Math Problem | Kevin Hartnett | August 19, 2020 | Quanta Magazine
tile work in the bathrooms, furniture, and artwork on the walls all flowed together and carried his creative touch.
When Gary Wright Met George Harrison: Dream Weaver, John and Yoko, and More | Gary Wright | September 29, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTRevered and dutiful, he fought (and was injured) in World War II, and succeeded to the tile in 1953.
For Sale: The $3M British Mountain—With Aristocratic Family Feud Included | Tom Sykes | August 24, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAs I reach the berm of sand, tile and stucco that marked a kind of front line, bodies are being piled on carts in the street.
The second he does, her giggle sends the Queen of Spades cascading to the brown tile floor below.
She was standing out of the way, over against the gray tile wall.
Jimmy Breslin on JFK’s Assassination: Two Classic Columns | Jimmy Breslin | November 22, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIt is in the Elizabethan style, with half-timber frame and sagging tile roof.
British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car | Thomas D. MurphyA variety of paving tile called "oven tiles" is of similar material to the ordinary red brick, and in size is 10 or 12 in.
Gutters also of tile ran along the eaves to conduct the water into cisterns, if it was needed for domestic purposes.
The Private Life of the Romans | Harold Whetstone JohnstonThe roofs are of tile, for the winters on the hills are too severe to permit the flat, terraced roofs of Algiers or Bona.
This stopper sometimes is of tile, sometimes a plug of paper or burlap.
Elements of Plumbing | Samuel Dibble
British Dictionary definitions for tile
/ (taɪl) /
a flat thin slab of fired clay, rubber, linoleum, etc, usually square or rectangular and sometimes ornamental, used with others to cover a roof, floor, wall, etc: Related adjective: tegular
a short pipe made of earthenware, concrete, or plastic, used with others to form a drain
tiles collectively
a rectangular block used as a playing piece in mah jong and other games
British old-fashioned, slang a hat
on the tiles informal on a spree, esp of drinking or debauchery
(tr) to cover with tiles
Origin of tile
1Derived forms of tile
- tiler, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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