Forms: see TILE and STONE. [OE. tiʓelstán, f. tiʓele, TILE sb.1 + stán, STONE sb. Cf. MHG. ziegelstein.]
† 1. A brick or tile; the material of bricks or tiles: = TILE sb.1 1, 2. Obs.
a. 1100. Gloss., in Eng. Studien, XI. 66. Hec imbrex, tiʓelstan.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. xi. 3. Cometh, & make we tile [1388 tiel] stoons, and sethe we hem with fier. Ibid. (1388), Isa. ix. 10. Tijl stoonys fellen doun, but we schulen bilde with square stoonys.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), II. 233. Oon ston was of marbole,… that other was of tyleston.
c. 1425. trans. Arderne’s Treat. Fistula, 82. Tak a tile stone or a scarþe of a potte, and putte it in þe middez of brynnyng colez.
1573. L. Lloyd, Marrow of Hist. (1653), 21. Pyrrhus … was killed by a … woman with a Tile stone.
1600. Nashe, Summer’s Last Will, in Hazl., Dodsley, VIII. 25. For fear of wearing out my lord’s tile-stones with your hobnails.
1681. Chetham, Angler’s Vade-m., iv. § 20. Dry them on a Fire-Shovel or Tilestone or in an Oven.
2. Geol. Any laminated flagstone, splitting into layers thicker than slate, suitable for roofing-tiles; spec. a group of sandstones forming the transition beds between the Silurian and Devonian systems.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 242. Saxum Fissile … Slate or Tyle-stone.
1719. Strachey, in Phil. Trans., XXX. 971. At Stanton they have … an Iron-Gritt or grey Tile-Stone, which is a Fore-runner of the Coal-Clives.
1778. Eng. Gazetteer (ed. 2), Norton under Hambden-Hill, Som. … has large quarries of free-stone,… as well as of tile-stone, &c.
1842. Sedgwick, in Hudson, Guide Lakes (1843), 213. Three groups—the lowest characterized by red flagstone (or ‘tilestone’).
1876. A. H. Green, Phys. Geol., ii. § 7. If the layers are thin enough for roofing purposes the rock is called a Tilestone.
