tile, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tile n.

[it sits on top of one’s roof n. (2)]

a hat.

1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 39: We observed a Highland farmer dressed in a blue cherry top’t tile.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 309: I give and bequeath unto my friend, Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., my tile [...] otherwise my hat.
1840		‘The Hat of Other Days’ Lloyd’s Pickwickian Songster 7: The Hat of other days is faded [...] White tiles at two and sixpence daily, / Now meet the public gaze.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 4 June n.p.: I see that your boots are ventilated. / And that you sport a shickery tile.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 2/4: This gent had better get another tile, the white castor and crape band sells him, but after all he is not a bad fellow.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Sept. : Jackson first threw up his tile, which presently followed by the cabbage-tree of the native.
1849		Sam Sly 14 Apr. 3/3: Old P——ak’s paunch and his nobby tile.
1850		‘Asmodeus’ Sharps and Flats; or, The Perils of City Life 10/2: ‘The devil take her table!’ he exclaimed as he took his ‘tile’ from the mantle and smoothed the nap.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 June 64/1: [cartoon caption] No game would even dream of getting out of the way of an enemy with such an uncivilized looking tile.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 43/2: People wants a decent tile for Sundays.
1871		Gympie Times (Qld) 11 jan. 3/6: He has no hat, but shelters his head beneath a ‘tile’.
1874		L. Troubridge Life amongst Troubridges (1966) 93: Our tiles really looked very well.
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: Whereupon, the party addressed takes an inventory of his friend’s clothes and [...] as to his head-covering, he thinks had better ‘shoot that tile’ and buy a new ‘dice,’ as ‘cadies’ of that style are out of fashion.
c.1880		list of US Army Sl. 1870s–1880s (compiled by R. Bunting, San Diego CA, 2001) Tile A hat; a new tile for your roof.
1881-2		T.B. Reed Fifth Form at St Dominic’s (1890) 110: One afternoon the entire Fourth Junior appeared in the corridors in their Sunday tiles! In their Sunday tiles they slid down the banisters; in their Sunday tiles they played leapfrog.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 June 9/1: Can a George-streot hatter who appends poetry to his advertisements be called a vers-a-tile fellow?
1890		James Rolmaz ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ 🎵 Where did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile?
1892		H. Lawson ‘Modern Parasites’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 191: But, when the working-man’s ahead a different man is he: / he stows away his shiny tile an’ yells for ‘Liberty’.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 215: He skied his tile in the most approved fashion.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 26 Jan. 269: Some swells say there is no style without the ‘tile’.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Sept. 10/1: Why doth the Cove who owns a Pile / Tie up his little bag? / And he who wears a glossy Tile / Prepare to hump his swag.
1912		Arthurs & David [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Piccadilly Trot 🎵 If you see a Johnny in the latest style / Money-a-pile, glossy new tile.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 97: Timothy extracts from the inside of his silk tile a billboard poster.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Dance’ in Rose of Spadgers 136: Wot sort uv tile an’ bags / Is them to wear?
1930		(con. 1910–20s) D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 120: Tile ... a hat.
1934		Central Qld Herald (Rockhampton) 6 Sept. 12/2: Cady, tile, lid for hat.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 11: Tile: Hat.
1938		Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: No man can strut who knows his hat is [...] a ‘lid’ or ‘tile’.
1958		(con. 1890s) S.H. Adams Tenderloin 181: Where did you get that hat? / Where did you get that tile?

In phrases

fly a tile (v.)

to knock off a man’s hat as a form of practical joke, or in a street robbery; also tile v.

1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 158: Another point of amusement is flying a tile, or slating a man, as the phrases of the Stock Exchange describe it.
1886		A. Pinkerton Thirty Years a Detective 46: A quiet command ‘tile him!’ is given, and the countryman’s hat is shoved from behind.

have a tile loose (v.) (also have a loose slate, …a slate loose, …a slate off, …a tile off)

1. to be eccentric or foolish.

1849		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 20 May 4/1: He says the big Dutchman’s goose is cooked; but, bless you, I think he's got a tile off (atween us two).
1854		J.E. Millais letter 25 May in Lutyens Millais and Ruskin (1967) 216: Ruskin [...] is certainly mad or has a slate loose [OED].
1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 60: ‘Will you have the kindness to explain what you mean by the prisoner having ‘a loose slate?’ ‘A tile off. Something wrong about the roof – the garret – the upper story – the nut.’.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 129: Old bald-pate [...] is certainly a most eccentric party [...] He has evidently got a tile off.
1880		G.F. Northall ‘Momus’ Misc. 24: Wat Tyler, or The Man with the Loose Slate.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1902		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 25 Nov. 3/3: Innumerable and curious euphemisms for ‘mad’ [...] ‘balmy in the crumpet’, [...] ‘a tile loose,’ ‘soft in the cocoa-nut,’ ‘off his rocker,’ ‘off his nut,’ ‘off his chump’ [and] ‘a little bit off the top’.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 May 4/8: And they say there’s a rattle in one of his slates.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 222: have a screw, tile, slate loose, to, light-minded.
1926		Breton & Bevir Adventures of Mrs. May 33: If you think you can spoof mee, yer slates is loose.
1929		B. Duffy Rocky Road 113: He means that there’s a ‘slate off’ or a ‘screw loose.’.
1940		F. Sargeson ‘In the Department’ in A Man And His Wife (1944) 52: Everyone said he had a tile loose.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 199: He [...] has a screw loose, a tile loose, is a bit touched.
1964		J. Orton Entertaining Mr Sloane Act I: He ought to be in Colney Hatch. He’s a slate off.
1976		H. Leonard Time Was (1981) Act I: Has he a slate loose?
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 344: tile loose; touched (or tetched) in the head; turned (or gone around) the bend.

2. (US) to be drunk.

1915

M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 222: have a screw, tile, slate loose, to, [...] to be drunk.

loose in the tiles (adj.)

see loose in the bean under bean n.¹

off one’s tile (adj.)

1. crazy, eccentric.

1901		Bateman & LeBrunn [perf. Kate Carney] Liza Johnson 🎵 ’Cos he tries to do the cake-walk, people think he’s off his tile.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 14 Sept. 8/7: E’s supposed to be balmy, and clean off his tile.

2. (Aus.) mad, angry.

1918

Aussie (France) VI Aug. 9/1: You’d ’a’ thought that cleaning harness would ’a’ won the blessed war, / For a speck o’ rust would send him off his tile.

take the tile(s) off (v.) [? one’s fig. disposal of all one’s assets, up to the house tiles]

(UK society) to live in an extremely extravagant manner.

1878		Truth (London) May in Ware (1909) 240/2: He flings his money about with a lavish recklessness, sufficient to take, as they say, the tiles off the roof of a house.
1880		‘Erro’ Squattermania 250: ‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ replied Sutton. ‘Don’t take the tile off the roof, mate,’ said one of the loafers.