pile
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Appendix:Variations of "pile"
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).
Noun
pile (plural piles)
- A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
- 1889, H. Rider Haggard, Cleopatra, Book II: The Fall of Harmachis, →ISBN, Chapter XI:
- I climbed through, and, standing on a pile of stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.
- (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
- A mass formed in layers.
- a pile of shot
- A funeral pile; a pyre.
- 1717, Samuel Croxall, “Book XIII. [The Funeral of Memnon.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 463:
- 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: [...]
- (slang) A large amount of money.
- Synonyms: bundle, (both informal) mint, (colloquial) small fortune
- He made a pile from that invention of his.
- 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 192:
- When they are at work they live most frugally, denying themselves every comfort and luxury till they have made a "pile."
- A large building, or mass of buildings.
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter VI, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 124:
- The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; […]
- 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the fight.
- 1892, Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved:
- 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 […]
- 2021 September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, in RAIL, number 940, page 75:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- (architecture, civil engineering) A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground, usually as one of a group that constitutes a foundation.
- Hyponyms: friction pile, bearing pile, end bearing pile
- Coordinate terms: pier, stilt
- An atomic pile; an early form of nuclear reactor.
- (obsolete) The reverse (or tails) of a coin.
- A list or league
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:lot
Derived terms
- at the bottom of the pile
- at the top of the pile
- book piles
- Bunsen pile
- cross and pile
- death pile
- dogpile
- go the whole pile
- helical pile
- hook-and-pile fastener
- make a pile
- nuclear pile
- pig pile
- pile driver
- pile-driving
- pile of crap
- pile of poo
- pile of shit
- pile-on
- pile shoe
- pile-up
- puppy pile
- rubble pile
- slash pile
- slush pile
- three-pile
- Zamboni pile
Descendants
- → Hawaiian: paila
Translations
mass of things heaped together; heap — see also heap
|
mass formed in layers
funeral pile — see pyre
large building, or mass of buildings
wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes — see fagot
vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals, laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; voltaic pile or galvanic pile
|
architecture, civil engineering: beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground
atomic pile — see atomic pile
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Verb
pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)
- (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.
- (transitive) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.
- We piled the camel with our loads.
- 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
- 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.
- (transitive) To add something to a great number.
- 2010 December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0-2 Blackpool”, in BBC:
- 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.
- (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
- (transitive, military) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
- (intransitive) To form a pile or heap.
- Synonyms: accumulate, pile up
- Junk piled on the floor as we searched the attic for the old photograph albums.
- 2007 October 7, S.S. Fair, “Vacuum Packed”, in New York Times:
- I darted from room to room as the see-through bagless dustbin piled high with shocking amounts of icky-poo.
Synonyms
- (lay or throw into a pile): heap, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up
Derived terms
Translations
to lay or throw into a pile
|
to overload
|
to add something to a great number
to create a hold-up
|
Related terms
- funeral pile
- muscular pile
- pile bridge
- pile cap
- pile driver
- pile in
- pile on
- pile on the pounds
- pile out
- pile up
- thermopile
Etymology 2
From Middle English pile, from Old English pīl, from Latin pīlum (“heavy javelin”). Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil. Doublet of pilum.
Noun
pile (plural piles)
- (obsolete) A dart; an arrow.
- The head of an arrow or spear.
- 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.
- 1719, Daniel Defoe, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 10th edition, published 1864, Chapter VI, page 68:
- 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.
- (heraldry) One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.
Derived terms
- pile bridge
- pile cap
- pile driver
- pile dwelling
- pile engine
- pile plank
- pneumatic pile
- screw pile
- sheet pile
Translations
head of an arrow or spear
stake of pointed timber, steel etc., driven into the earth
|
Verb
pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)
- (transitive) To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
Translations
Etymology 3
Apparently from Late Latin pilus. Doublet of pilus.
Noun
pile (plural piles)
- (usually in the plural) A hemorrhoid.
Translations
hemorrhoid — see hemorrhoid
Etymology 4
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.
Noun
pile (countable and uncountable, plural piles)
- Hair, especially when very fine or short; the fine underfur of certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.)
- The raised hairs, loops or strands of a fabric; the nap of a cloth.
- 1785, William Cowper, The Task:
- Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile.
Derived terms
Translations
fine or short hair
nap of a cloth — see nap
Verb
pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)
- (transitive) To give a pile to; to make shaggy.
Anagrams
Pronunciation
Noun
pile c
- indefinite plural of pil
Etymology
Inherited from Old French, from Latin pīla (through Italian pila for the “battery” sense). The “tail of a coin” sense is probably derived from previous senses, but it's not known for sure.
Pronunciation
Noun
pile f (plural piles)
- heap, stack
- pile de cartons ― stack of cardboard boxes
- pillar
- battery
- pile électrique ― electric battery
- tails
- pile ou face ― heads or tails
- (heraldry) pile
Derived terms
Descendants
Adverb
pile
- (colloquial) just, exactly
- (colloquial) dead (of stopping etc.); on the dot, sharp (of time), smack
Derived terms
Further reading
- “pile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
Etymology 1
Noun
pile f (plural pilis)
Synonyms
Etymology 2
Noun
pile f (plural pilis)
- pile (architecture)
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Pseudo-anglicism, from English pile (textile).
Noun
pile m (invariable)
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Noun
pile f
Anagrams
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Noun
pile f (Latin spelling, plural piles)
- Aki Yerushalayim and French orthography spelling of pila used in Kosovo, North Macedonia, Old Yishuv of Jerusalem, West Bulgaria and Ruse.
Noun
pile
Noun
pile f (5th declension)
- drip
- Es pievienoju vaniļas ekstrakta pili savam karstajam kakao.
- I put a drip of vanilla extract in my hot cocoa.
- dribble (a small amount of a liquid)
- drop
- Maisījumam pievienot trīs eļļas piles.
- Put three drops of oil into the mixture.
Declension
| singular (vienskaitlis) | plural (daudzskaitlis) | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative (nominatīvs) | pile | piles |
| genitive (ģenitīvs) | piles | piļu |
| dative (datīvs) | pilei | pilēm |
| accusative (akuzatīvs) | pili | piles |
| instrumental (instrumentālis) | pili | pilēm |
| locative (lokatīvs) | pilē | pilēs |
| vocative (vokatīvs) | pile | piles |
Declension of pile (5th declension)
Pronunciation
Noun
pile
- inflection of piła:
Noun
pile
- Alternative form of pilwe
Pronunciation
Noun
pile f
Verb
pile
- inflection of pilar:
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