he has a tile loose
Preserved but no longer current.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “he has a tile loose” mean?
He is not quite compos mentis, not all there. In Freemasonry, to tile a lodge means to close and guard the doors to prevent anyone uninitiated from entering, the officer who does this being called the Tiler, sometimes spelled tyler.
Is “he has a tile loose” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.