pile
nounverbnounverbnounnounverbnouncommon in dialogue
- //paɪl//
A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
noun
- 1
A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
I climbed through, and, standing on a pile of stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.
- 2
informalA 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.
- 3
A mass formed in layers.
a pile of shot
- 4
A funeral pile; a pyre.
Jove with a Nod, comply'd with her Deſire; / Around the Body flam'd the Funeral Fire; / The Pile decreas'd that lately ſeem'd ſo high, / And Sheets of Smoak roll'd upward to the Sky: [...]
- 5
slangA large amount of money.
He made a pile from that invention of his.
When they are at work they live most frugally, denying themselves every comfort and luxury till they have made a "pile."
- 6
A large building, or mass of buildings.
The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; […]
The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the fight.
It was dark when the four-wheeled cab wherein he had brought Avice from the station stood at the entrance to the pile of flats of which Pierston occupied one floor[…]
He [Winston Churchill] was born at Blenheim Palace, that Oxfordshire pile built for his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who also knew a thing or two about warfare.
- 7
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.
- 8
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.
The word "pile" is used specifically to mean the column of superposed electrodes, such as that of Volta or Zamboni.
- 9
A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground, usually as one of a group that constitutes a foundation.
- 10
An atomic pile; an early form of nuclear reactor.
- 11
obsoleteThe reverse (or tails) of a coin.
- 12
A list or league
And the moment it thumped into the net, Celtic’s march back to the top of the SPL pile also seemed unstoppable.
Watch Harlequins train and you get some idea of why they are back on top of the pile going into Saturday's rerun of last season's grand final against Leicester.
Etymology
From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).
verb
- 1
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.
- 2
To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.
We piled the camel with our loads.
Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.
- 3
To add something to a great number.
But as the second half wore on, Sunderland piled forward at every opportunity and their relentless pressure looked certain to be rewarded in the closing stages.
- 4
(of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
- 5
To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
- 6
To form a pile or heap.
Junk piled on the floor as we searched the attic for the old photograph albums.
I darted from room to room as the see-through bagless dustbin piled high with shocking amounts of icky-poo.
noun
- 1
obsoleteA dart; an arrow.
- 2
The head of an arrow or spear.
- 3
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.
All this time I worked very hard [...] and it is scarce credible what inexpressible labour everything was done with, especially the bringing piles out of the woods and driving them into the ground; for I made them much bigger than I needed to have done.
- 4
One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.
Etymology
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.
verb
- 1
To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
noun
- 1
A hemorrhoid.
Etymology
Apparently from Late Latin pilus. Doublet of pilus.
noun
- 1
Hair, especially when very fine or short; the fine underfur of certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.)
- 2
The raised hairs, loops or strands of a fabric; the nap of a cloth.
Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile.
Etymology
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.
verb
- 1
To give a pile to; to make shaggy.
noun
- 1
historicalA battery (simple device for converting chemical potential energy into usable electricity).
- 2
historicalA battery (simple device for converting chemical potential energy into usable electricity). A battery consisting of repeated units of alternating types of metal; voltaic pile.
Etymology
From French pile (“battery”), with the pronunciation adapted to the existing English word pile. Doublet of Etymology 1, which may have influenced the sense development by emphasizing the stack (“pile”) out of which early batteries were made.
Forms
- plural
- piles
- past tense
- piled
- past participle
- piled
- present participle
- piling
- third person singular
- piles