pile
/paɪl/ noun, verb, proper noun
- noun (collective) A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
- noun (informal) A group or list of related items up for consideration, especially in some kind of selection process. “When we were looking for a new housemate, we put the nice woman on the "maybe" pile, and the annoying guy on the "no" pile.”
- noun A mass formed in layers. “a pile of shot”
- noun A funeral pile; a pyre.
- noun (slang) A large amount of money. “He made a pile from that invention of his.”
- noun A large building, or mass of buildings.
- noun A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; a fagot.
- noun A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals (especially copper and zinc), laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; a voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.
- verb (transitive, often used with the preposition "up") To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate “They were piling up wood on the wheelbarrow.”
- verb (transitive) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load. “We piled the camel with our loads.”
- verb (transitive) To add something to a great number.
- verb (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
- verb (transitive, military) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
- verb (intransitive) To form a pile or heap. “Junk piled on the floor as we searched the attic for the old photograph albums.”
- noun (obsolete) A dart; an arrow.
- noun The head of an arrow or spear.
- noun A large stake, or piece of pointed timber, steel etc., driven into the earth or sea-bed for the support of a building, a pier, or other superstructure, or to form a cofferdam, etc.
- noun (heraldry) One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.
- verb (transitive) To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
- noun (usually in the plural) A hemorrhoid.
Synonyms
bundle mint small fortune heap accumulate pile up mound agglomerate cumulation cumulus batch deal flock good deal great deal hatful lot mass mess mickle mountain muckle passel peck plenty pot quite a little raft sight slew
Etymology
From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).
From Middle English pile, from Old English pīl, from Proto-West Germanic *pīl, from Latin pīlum (“heavy javelin”). Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil. Doublet of pilum.
Apparently from Late Latin pilus. Doublet of pilus.
From Middle English pile, partly from Anglo-Norman pil (a variant of peil, poil (“hair”)) and partly from its source, Latin pilus (“hair”). Doublet of pilus.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A hair; hence, the fiber of wool, cotton, and the like; also, the nap when thick or heavy, as of carpeting and velvet.
- noun A covering of hair or fur.
- noun The head of an arrow or spear. [Obs.] Chapman.
- noun A large stake, or piece of timber, pointed and driven into the earth, as at the bottom of a river, or in a harbor where the ground is soft, for the support of a building, a pier, or other superstructure, or to form a cofferdam, etc.
Etymology [L. pilus hair. Cf. Peruke.]
Etymology [L. pilum javelin. See Pile a stake.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pile”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details