# tile
## English
### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /taɪl/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /ˈtaɪ.əl/
* Rhymes: -aɪl

### Etymology 1

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.
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”).

#### Noun

tile (plural tiles)
* 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.
** 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.
* (computing) A rectangular graphic.
    Each tile within the map consists of 256 × 256 pixels.
    Sprites and tiles that are hidden in the prototype ROM file can be recovered.
* Any of various flat cuboid playing pieces used in certain games, such as dominoes, Scrabble, or mahjong.
** 2005, William T. Vollmann, “They Came Out Like Ants!”, in Dave Eggers, editor, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005‎ (Literature), Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 298:One hot summer day in the Chinese city of Nan-ning, I wandered through a park of lotus leaves and exotic flowers to a pagoda where ancient women sat, drowsily, happily playing mahjongg amidst the scent of flowers, and that excellent sound of clicking tiles enchanted me; I was far from home, but that long slow summer afternoon with the mah-jongg sounds brought me back to my own continent and specifically to Mexicali, whose summer tranquillity never ends.
* (dated, informal) A stiff hat.
** 1865, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions:Tile - Tile, a Hat.
** 1911, Charles Collins, Fred E. Terry and E.A. Sheppard, "Any Old Iron", British Music Hall song
    Dressed in style, brand-new tile, And your father's old green tie on.
** 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:Thus, when old Doctor Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed opera-hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query of "Where did you get that tile?" that he hurriedly removed it, and concealed it furtively under his chair.
* (Lego building) A Lego piece that is 1/3 the height of a brick, and is smooth without studs on top.

##### Derived terms

* adaptive tile refresh
* creasing tile
* Dutch tile
* encaustic tile
* field tile
* floating wood tile
* floor tile
* girih tile
* glazed tile
* out on the tiles
* paving tile
* pill tile
* quarry tile
* reflet tile
* rep-tile
* rest tile
* roof tile
* subway tile
* tilefish
* tile loose
* tile-matching game
* tile ore
* tile red
* tile saw
* tile tracking
* tilework
* Truchet tile
* undertile
* vinyl composition tile
* Wang tile
* weeping tile

##### Descendants

* → Bengali: টালি (ṭali)
* → Japanese: タイル (tairu)
* → Korean: 타일 (tail)
* → Nepali: टाइल (ṭāil)
* → Odia: ଟାଇଲ୍ (ṭāil)
* → Welsh: teils

##### Translations
#### Verb

tile (third-person singular simple present tiles, present participle tiling, simple past and past participle tiled)
* (transitive) To cover with tiles.
    The handyman tiled the kitchen.
    White marble tiled the bathroom.
** 1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, →ISBN, page 38:Some professionals begin tiling a wall by setting a full tile in the most visually prominent corner […]
* (graphical user interface) To arrange in a regular pattern, with adjoining edges (applied to tile-like objects, graphics, windows in a computer interface).
* (computing theory) To optimize (a loop in program code) by means of the tiling technique.
* (Freemasonry) To seal a lodge against intrusions from unauthorised people.

##### Derived terms

* tiler

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

See tiler (“doorkeeper at a Masonic lodge”).

#### Alternative forms

* tyle

#### Verb

tile (third-person singular simple present tiles, present participle tiling, simple past and past participle tiled)
* To protect from the intrusion of the uninitiated.
    to tile a Masonic lodge
    tile the door

### See also

* Tile Hill

### Anagrams

* -lite, IELT, Tiel, lite, teil, tiel

## Bambara
### Noun

tìlé
* sun
* day, daytime, the heat of the day
* epoch, era

#### Derived terms

* tilebɛnnan
* tilebinyanfan
* tilefana
* tilegan
* tilela
* tilema
* tilen
* tilenunɛti
* tilesekuncɛ

## Irish
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Noun

tile m (genitive singular tile, nominative plural tilí)
* (nautical, literary) board, plank (of boat)
* (nautical)
** sheets
** poop

#### Declension

bare forms
singular
plural
nominative
tile
tilí
vocative
a thile
a thilí
genitive
tile
tilí
dative
tile
tilí
forms with the definite article
singular
plural
nominative
an tile
na tilí
genitive
an tile
na dtilí
dative
leis an tile don tile
leis na tilí :

#### Derived terms

* ráille tile (“poop-rail”)
* tile tosaigh (“fore-sheet”)
* tile deiridh (“stern-sheet”)

### Mutation

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish. All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

### Further reading

* Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “tile”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
* de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “tile”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
* “tile”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2025

## Old English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈti.le/

### Adjective

tile
* inflection of til:
** strong accusative feminine singular
** strong instrumental masculine/neuter singular
** strong nominative/accusative masculine/feminine plural
** weak nominative feminine/neuter singular
** weak accusative neuter singular

## Pali
### Alternative forms

* 𑀢𑀺𑀮𑁂 (Brahmi script)
* तिले (Devanagari script)
* তিলে (Bengali script)
* තිලෙ (Sinhalese script)
* တိလေ (Burmese script)
* ติเล (Thai script)
* ᨲᩥᩃᩮ (Tai Tham script)
* ຕິເລ (Lao script)
* តិលេ (Khmer script)
* 𑄖𑄨𑄣𑄬 (Chakma script)

### Noun

tile
* locative singular of tila (“sesame”)

## Spanish
### Etymology

Borrowed from Pipil tlilli.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtile/ [ˈt̪i.le]
* Rhymes: -ile
* Syllabification: ti‧le

### Noun

tile m (plural tiles)
* (El Salvador, Honduras) soot
    Synonyms: hollín, negrumo
* (poetic, Honduras) darkness
    Synonym: oscuridad

### Adjective

tile m or f (masculine and feminine plural tiles)
* (colloquial, Honduras) hard, complicated
    Synonyms: dipisil, complicado

### Further reading

* “tile”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10
* tile | Diccionario de americanismos | ASALE