What does "shingle" mean?
Shingle: A piece of wood sawed or rived thin and small, with one end thinner than the other, -- used in covering buildings, especially roofs, the thick ends of one row overlapping the thin ends of the row below. I reached St. Asaph, . . . where there is a very poor cathedral church covered with shingles or tiles. Ray.
Additional senses
- 2.A sign for an office or a shop; as, to hang out one's shingle. [Jocose, U. S.] Shingle oak (Bot.), a kind of oak (Quercus imbricaria) used in the Western States for making shingles.
- 3.To cover with shingles; as, to shingle a roof. They shingle their houses with it. Evelyn.
- 4.To cut, as hair, so that the ends are evenly exposed all over the head, as shingles on a roof.
- 5.To subject to the process of shindling, as a mass of iron from the pudding furnace.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00