tile
Americannoun
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tiles
plural
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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.
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any of various similar slabs or pieces, as of linoleum, stone, rubber, or metal.
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tiles collectively.
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a flat, rectangular playing piece used in certain games, as Scrabble and mah-jongg.
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a pottery tube or pipe used for draining land.
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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.
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Informal. a stiff hat or high silk hat.
verb (used with object)
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tiles,
present (3rd person singular)
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tiled,
past participle, past
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tiling
present participle
noun
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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
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a short pipe made of earthenware, concrete, or plastic, used with others to form a drain
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tiles collectively
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a rectangular block used as a playing piece in mah jong and other games
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old-fashioned a hat
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informal on a spree, esp of drinking or debauchery
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tilesimple
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tilessimple
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have tiledperfect
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has tiledperfect
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am tilingprogressive
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are tilingprogressive
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is tilingprogressive
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have been tilingperfect progressive
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has been tilingperfect progressive
Past
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tiledsimple
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had tiledperfect
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was tilingprogressive
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were tilingprogressive
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had been tilingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tile
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English tīgele (cognate with German Ziegel ), from Latin tēgula
Explanation
A tile is a flat piece of material that's used to cover a roof, floor, or wall. If you're artistic, you can make a mosaic out of small, colorful glass tiles. Most tiles are made out of ceramic, metal, glass, or stone. Many baths and showers are lined with ceramic tiles, and it's also common to find tiles covering bathroom and kitchen floors. Historians have traced tiles back at least as far as the 13th century BCE, in Mesopotamia. To cover a surface in tiles is to tile. Flat, hard game pieces are also commonly known as tiles, like the Scrabble tiles you pick at the beginning of a game. The root of this word means "to cover."
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:
Roebuck was still lying on the tile floor, his stomach burning.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
"What is especially fascinating about the hat tile is that, although the resulting pattern appears irregular at first glance, it is actually constructed from the honeycomb lattice," says lead author Yuto Moritake.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026
Inside, Portuguese tile, raffia and colorful linens fill airy living spaces that open onto private pools.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
Hardwood floors run throughout the property, including in the bedrooms, save for the entryway which features a terracotta tile and a wrought iron staircase leading up to the second level.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
Maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought she felt the faintest bit of warmth coming from the tile of home in her pocket.
From "Aru Shah and the End of Time" by Roshani Chokshi
The individual ceramic tiles create a complete composition but are also subject to the vicissitudes of the kiln.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
"Things like ceiling tiles were broken. There was dust and debris when things were disturbed, though at the time she didn't know what it was."
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Excellent, if your tastes trend toward carpet tiles, hospital lighting, and the trapped-animal sensation of entering a room with no exit.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
There is the intermittent purr of generators, dogs barking, and, from time to time, the dry clack of domino tiles echoing in the street.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
He grabbed some nails from the box I was holding and started pounding them into the corners of the tiles.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
It offers quiet roads along coastlines and river gorges and into mountains, among rice paddies and through towns with tiled roofs where villagers pride themselves on their Shikoku hospitality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
This country is tiled with adrift twentysomething males, beset with incoherent politics, whose opinion about any issue is generated in the 10 seconds after they’ve been asked the question.
From Slate ● Apr. 13, 2026
Like many visitors, Billy first came to Kelvingrove with this family and it is memories of those visits, including sliding around the tiled floors with his sister Flo, in their socks, that he recalls.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
Following the incident, photos posted on social media showed shattered glass in the snow outside the entrance to the embassy's consular section, cracks in a glass door and dark marks on a tiled floor.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
I want to do push-ups, but I can’t on the stretcher, and it’s probably a bad idea to do them on the tiled floor, which doesn’t look recently mopped.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
"They get up into the mountains and into these caves, where they make this beautiful tiling pattern," said Western Sydney University insect researcher Eleanor Drinkwater.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
Yet after the announcement, a dozen tellers continued to serve the Farsi-speaking customers who trickled in to do business in the bright space decorated with Persian-themed mural work and tiling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Meanwhile the tiling for the kitchen has, Lorenze revealed, been specially created for the couple featuring designs that reflect their passions, interests, and romantic milestones.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 8, 2026
Well-known visual examples of this kind of tiling can be found in the artwork of M.C.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 7, 2026
“Perhaps,” thought Mr. Popper, “all that white tiling reminds him of the ice and snow at the South Pole. Poor thing, maybe he’s thirsty.”
From "Mr. Popper's Penguins" by Florence Atwater and Richard Atwater
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