shingle

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈʃɪŋ.ɡəl/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋɡəl

From Middle English scincle, from Vulgar Latin scindula, from Latin scandula.

shingle (plural shingles)

Shingle roof

1. A small, thin piece of building material, often with one end thicker than the other, for laying in overlapping rows as a covering for the roof or sides of a building.
   • 1760, John Ray, Select Remains of the Learned John Ray, M.A. and F.R.S.‎, page 123:

     I reached St. Asaph, a Bishop's See, where there is a very poor Cathedral Church, covered with Shingles or Tiles

2. A rectangular piece of steel obtained by means of a shingling process involving hammering of puddled steel.
3. A small signboard designating a professional office; this may be both a physical signboard or a metaphoric term for a small production company (a production shingle).

shingle (third-person singular simple present shingles, present participle shingling, simple past and past participle shingled)

1. (transitive) To cover with small, thin pieces of building material, with shingles.
2. (transitive) To cut, as hair, so that the ends are evenly exposed all over the head, like shingles on a roof.

• shingler
• shingly
• to hang out one's shingle

• shake
• tile

From dialectal French chingler (“to strap, whip”), from Latin cingula (“girt, belt”), from cingere (“to girt”)

shingle (third-person singular simple present shingles, present participle shingling, simple past and past participle shingled)

1. (transitive, manufacturing) To hammer and squeeze material in order to expel cinder and impurities from it, as in metallurgy.
2. (transitive) To beat with a shingle.

shingle (plural shingles)

1. A punitive strap such as a belt.
2. (by extension) Any paddle used for corporal punishment.

Probably cognate to the Norwegian singl (“small stones”) or the North Frisian singel (“gravel”), both imitative of the sound of water running over such pebbles.

shingle (countable and uncountable, plural shingles)

1. Small, smooth pebbles, as found on a beach.
   • 1867, Matthew Arnold

     And naked shingles of the world.

   • 2014 August 24, Jeff Howell, “Home improvements: gravel paths and cutting heating bills [print version: Cold comfort in technology, 23 August 2014, p. P5]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property)‎:

     You need to excavate and remove the topsoil, line the subsoil with a geotextile, then lay and compact hardcore. Follow this with a layer of compacted "hoggin" – compacted clay, gravel and sand. This is then sprayed with hot bitumen, and has a layer of pea shingle rolled into it.

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• Corpun.com, a specialized website on Corporal Punishments

• English, Hingles, english