shingle
1 Americannoun
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a thin piece of wood, slate, metal, asbestos, or the like, usually oblong, laid in overlapping rows to cover the roofs and walls of buildings.
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a woman's close-cropped haircut.
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Informal. a small signboard, especially as hung before a doctor's or lawyer's office.
verb (used with object)
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to cover with shingles, as a roof.
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to cut (hair) close to the head.
idioms
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hang out one's shingle, to establish a professional practice, especially in law or medicine; open an office.
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have / be a shingle short, to be mentally disturbed, mad, or eccentric.
noun
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small, waterworn stones or pebbles such as lie in loose sheets or beds on a beach.
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a beach, riverbank, or other area covered with such small pebbles or stones.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a thin rectangular tile, esp one made of wood, that is laid with others in overlapping rows to cover a roof or a wall
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a woman's short-cropped hairstyle
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a small signboard or nameplate fixed outside the office of a doctor, lawyer, etc
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informal unintelligent or mentally subnormal
verb
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to cover (a roof or a wall) with shingles
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to cut (the hair) in a short-cropped style
noun
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coarse gravel, esp the pebbles found on beaches
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a place or area strewn with shingle
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of shingle1
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English scincle, sc(h)ingle, shyngle, ultimately from Latin scindula, variant of scandula “lath, shingle” ( Middle English -g- is unexplained); Latin scindula is due perhaps to association with Greek schíza, schídax “piece of split wood, splinter”
Origin of shingle2
First recorded in 1530–40; apparently variant of earlier chingle; further origin uncertain; but compare North Frisian singel “gravel,” Norwegian singel “small stones”
Origin of shingle3
First recorded in 1665–75; from French cingler “to whip, beat,” from German zängeln “to shingle,” derivative of Zange “pincers, pliers”; see also tong
Explanation
A shingle is a thin piece of wood used in making a roof or a signboard outside an office, especially a doctor’s or lawyer's. If you’re opening a business, hang your shingle outside so people can find you. One kind of shingle is a rectangular piece of wood or other material used to make a roof. The other is a type of small sign outside an office that shows someone is ready to see clients, patients, or other types of customers. The word shingle is from the Latin scindere for "to split,” as in splitting wood, and whatever you do with a shingle, it’s a small flat hunk of wood.
Vocabulary lists containing shingle
Learning Down The House: Parts of Your Home
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Beowulf
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"You can find all those fossils just loose, you know, in the shingle there, if you're lucky, and many families do, and I think that's such a wonderful pastime."
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
Wonder Project, the shingle behind hit TV series ‘House of David,’ is among a wave of Hollywood production companies bringing ‘faith programming’ into the 21st century.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2026
His memories alight on his father, Wheeler, an attorney who turned down a high-paying job in Chicago to hang out his shingle in Port William.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
We arrived, some minutes later, at a shingle beach beside the old fishing village of Audresselles, just south of Cap Gris-Nez.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2025
She might as well hang out her shingle like Fela and pretend the girls are taking possession of her.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
Nigerian models donned outfits of seemingly impossible amounts of fabric folded and moulded into massive silhouettes, or overlapping in shingled, feather-like patterns.
From Barron's ● Oct. 3, 2026
Forty minutes east of Absolem, I spotted the shingled barn of Bailey’s Orchard, where 79-year-old farmer Rodney Bailey tends dozens of obscure apple varieties including King David, Chenango Strawberry and Black Gilliflower.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
When you imagine a typical American family home, you probably picture something like John Williamson and Sue Spaziani’s house, with its shingled roof and wraparound porch.
From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2024
The buildings and shingled cottages are bright pastel, the waterfront dotted with cafes and patio umbrellas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
Three picnic shelters had been erected for the pleasure of the people of Noank, three open-sided structures with shingled roofs, tables, and in each shelter a stone fireplace for cooking.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
Freesuns is an early adopter of matrix shingling technology in building-integrated PV.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
For presentation, gingerly prop the tofu against the pork, shingling it out slightly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
Top each with two thin slices of ham and the cucumbers, shingling the cucumbers neatly on top of each sandwich.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 13, 2022
In addition to potted plants, they have moss-wrapped kokedama, cork-mounted plants, terrariums and shingling plants.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 9, 2021
He heard horses’ hoofs plodding on the road and far-off pounding on wood where a neighbor was shingling a barn.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
