pantile

English

A 19th-century waggoner's rest roofed with pantiles in Searby, Lincolnshire, UK, in which travellers would wait for their wagons

Etymology

From pan +‎ tile.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpantʌɪl/

Noun

pantile (plural pantiles)

1. A type of interlocking roof tile with a rounded under and over, giving it an elongated S shape.
   • 1977, Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia, Penguin Classics, published 2003, page 8:

     The houses of the estancias shrank behind screens of poplar and eucalyptus. Some of the houses had pantile roofs, but most were of metal sheet, painted red.

   • 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 103:

     All the gneiss roofing slates have vanished, to be replaced by pantiles painting patchworks of all possible orange hues.

   • 2014 October 26, Jeff Howell, “Is the Japanese knotweed threat exaggerated? Our troubleshooter calls for calm about Japanese knotweed in the garden – and moss on the roof [print version: Don't panic about an overhyped invasion, 25 October 2014, p. P13]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property)‎^[1]:

     Some old, underfired clay pantiles might be damaged by button mosses rooting in cracks and fissures. But most post-war tiles are hard enough to withstand a bit of moss growth.

2. (obsolete, slang) A hat.
   • 1830, Charles Cochrane, The Journal of a Tour Made by Señor Juan de Vega, page 243:

     "So you are a Quaker, master, are you?" he added, "Well, I thought somehow, by the cut of your pantile, (hat) you was something or other in that way."

   • 1885, Good Words, volume 26, page 107:

     Hats or ordinary caps can be worn over them, and they are much used by the drivers of hack-carriages and horse-cars. Those who cannot afford a fur cap, ear-muff, or pantile, tie a handkerchief over their ears, […]

3. (obsolete) A flat jam-covered cake.
   • 2013, Wayne Ward, Old Union, page 168:

     Of course unlike the officers we never got fresh bread, we got what came from barrels stored in the lower peak and under the steward's padlock. Pantiles baked brick hard, mouldy oats for skilly, dried peas for soup, embalmed pork and beef more fat and bone than meat.

Derived terms

• pantile shop

Verb

pantile (third-person singular simple present pantiles, present participle pantiling, simple past and past participle pantiled)

1. (transitive) To tile with pantiles.

References

• (hat; cake): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• Platine, pentail, pilenta, pit lane, pitlane