shingle

pronunciation

How to pronounce shingle in British English: UK [ˈʃɪŋgl] word uk audio image

How to pronounce shingle in American English: US [ˈʃɪŋɡəl] word us audio image

Noun:

building material used as siding or roofing
coarse beach gravel of small water-worn stones and pebbles (or a stretch of shore covered with such gravel)
a small signboard outside the office of a lawyer or doctor, e.g.
Verb:

cover with shingles

Word Origin

shingle: shingle: English has two distinct words shingle. The older, ‘roof tile’ [12], was borrowed from Latin scindula, a variant of scandula ‘roof tile’. This was probably derived from scandere ‘ascend’ (source of English ascend, descend, scan, etc), the underlying notion being of rows of tiles rising one above the other like steps. Shingle ‘beach pebbles’ [16] is of unknown origin; it may be related to Norwegian singl ‘coarse sand’ and North Frisian singel ‘gravel’. Shingles [14], incidentally, the name of a viral infection, comes from Latin cingulum ‘girdle’, a close relative of English cincture ‘girdle’: the disease is often characterized by skin eruptions that almost encircle the body.=> ascend, descend, scan; cincture

shingle (n.1): "thin piece of wood," c. 1200, scincle, from Late Latin scindula (also the source of German Schindel), altered (by influence of Greek schidax "lath" or schindalmos "splinter") from Latin scandula "roof tile," from scindere "to cleave, split," from PIE root *sked- "to split." Meaning "small signboard" is first attested 1842. Sense of "woman's short haircut" is from 1924; the verb meaning "to cut the hair so as to give the impression of overlapping shingles" is from 1857.

shingle (n.2): "loose stones on a seashore," 1510s, probably related to Norwegian singl "small stones," or North Frisian singel "gravel," both said to be echoic of the sound of water running over pebbles.

shingle (v.): "cover with shingles" (of houses), 1560s, from shingle (n.). Related: Shingled; shingling.

3. Every leaf , brick , shingle and blade of grass is fresh-washed and shining .

4. The dungeness national nature reserve is a desolate landscape of wooden houses , a nuclear power station , lighthouses , and is one of the largest areas of vegetated shingle in the world .