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pile

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also:Appendix:Variations of "pile"

English

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EnglishWikipediahas an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/paɪl/
  • Audio(US):(file)
  • Rhymes:-aɪl

Etymology 1

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FromMiddle Englishpyle,fromOld Frenchpile,fromLatinpīla(“pillar, pier”).

Noun

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pile(pluralpiles)

  1. A mass of thingsheapedtogether; aheap.
    • 1889,H. Rider Haggard,Cleopatra‎[1],Book II: The Fall of Harmachis,→ISBN,Chapter XI:
      I climbed through, and, standing on apileof stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.
  2. (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
  3. Amassformed in layers.
    apileof shot
  4. A funeral pile; apyre.
  5. (slang)A large amount ofmoney.
    Synonyms:bundle,(both informal)mint,(colloquial)small fortune
    He made apilefrom that invention of his.
    • 1887,Harriet W. Daly,Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia,page192:
      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.
    • 1817December 31 (indicated as1818), [Walter Scott], chapter VI, inRob Roy.[…],volume II, Edinburgh:[…]James Ballantyne and Co.forArchibald Constable and Co.[…];London:Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,→OCLC,page124:
      Thepileis of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture;[…]
    • 1697,Virgil,“(please specify the book number)”,inJohn Dryden,transl.,The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis.[…],London:[…]Jacob Tonson,[…],→OCLC:
      Thepileo'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 thepileof flats of which Pierston occupied one floor[…]
    • 2021September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, inRAIL,number940,page75:
      He [Winston Churchill] was born at Blenheim Palace, that Oxfordshirepilebuilt for his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who also knew a thing or two about warfare.
  7. Abundleof pieces ofwrought ironto be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; afagot.
  8. A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals (especially copper and zinc),laid upwith disks of cloth or papermoistenedwith acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; a voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.
    • 1893,Benjamin Park,The Voltaic Cell: Its Construction and Its Capacity,page14:
      The word "pile"is used specifically to mean the column of superposed electrodes, such as that ofVoltaorZamboni.
  10. (architecture,civil engineering)Abeam,pole,orpillar,driven completely into the ground, usually as one of a group that constitutes afoundation.
    Hyponyms:friction pile,bearing pile,end bearing pile
    Coordinate terms:pier,stilt
  11. Anatomic pile;an early form ofnuclear reactor.
  12. (obsolete)Thereverse(or tails) of a coin.
  13. Alistorleague
    • 2012September 20, Shaun Edwards, “Bent double and lungs burning – how Harlequins train for trophies”, inThe Guardian (online)‎[2]:
      Watch Harlequins train and you get some idea of why they are back on top of thepilegoing into Saturday's rerun of last season's grand final against Leicester.
    • 2011December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, inDaily Record‎[3]:
      And the moment it thumped into the net, Celtic’s march back to the top of the SPLpilealso seemed unstoppable.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Descendants
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  • →Hawaiian:paila
Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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pile(third-person singular simple presentpiles,present participlepiling,simple past and past participlepiled)

  1. (transitive,often used with the preposition "up")To lay or throw into a pile or heap; toheap up;to collect into a mass; to accumulate
    They werepiling upwood on the wheelbarrow.
  2. (transitive)Tocoverwith heaps; or in great abundance; to fill oroverfill;to load.
    Wepiledthe camel with our loads.
    • 2013June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”,inThe Economist,volume407,number8841,page70:
      Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.Pilingdebt 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. (transitive)To add something to a great number.
    • 2010December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0-2 Blackpool”,inBBC:
      But as the second half wore on, Sunderlandpiledforward at every opportunity and their relentless pressure looked certain to be rewarded in the closing stages.
  4. (transitive)(of vehicles) To create ahold-up.
  5. (transitive,military)To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together inthreesso that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
  6. (intransitive)To form a pile or heap.
    Synonyms:accumulate,pile up
    Junkpiledon the floor as we searched the attic for the old photograph albums.
    • 2007October 7, S.S. Fair, “Vacuum Packed”, inNew York Times‎[4]:
      I darted from room to room as the see-through bagless dustbinpiledhigh with shocking amounts oficky-poo.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Related terms

Etymology 2

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FromMiddle Englishpile,fromOld Englishpīl,fromLatinpīlum(“heavy javelin”).Cognate withDutchpijl,GermanPfeil.Doubletofpilum.

Noun

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pile(pluralpiles)

  2. (obsolete)Adart;anarrow.
  3. The head of anarroworspear.
  4. A largestake,or piece of pointedtimber,steel etc., driven into the earth or sea-bed for the support of a building, apier,or othersuperstructure,or to form acofferdam,etc.
    • 1719,Daniel Defoe,The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe‎[5],10th edition, published1864,Chapter VI, page68:
      All this time I worked very hard [...] and it is scarce credible what inexpressible labour everything was done with, especially the bringingpilesout of the woods and driving them into the ground; for I made them much bigger than I needed to have done.
  5. (heraldry)One of theordinariesorsubordinarieshaving the form of awedge,usually placedpalewise,with the broadest end uppermost.
Derived terms
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Derived terms
Translations
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Verb

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pile(third-person singular simple presentpiles,present participlepiling,simple past and past participlepiled)

  1. (transitive)To drivepilesinto; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
Translations
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Etymology 3

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Apparently fromLate Latinpilus.

Noun

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pile(pluralpiles)

  1. (usually in theplural)Ahemorrhoid.
Translations
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Etymology 4

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FromMiddle Englishpile,partly fromAnglo-Normanpil(a variant ofpeil,poil(“hair”)) and partly from its source,Latinpilus(“hair”).Doubletofpilus.

Noun

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pile(countableanduncountable,pluralpiles)

  1. Hair,especially when veryfineor short; the fineunderfurof certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.)
  2. The raised hairs, loops or strands of afabric;thenapof a cloth.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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pile(third-person singular simple presentpiles,present participlepiling,simple past and past participlepiled)

  1. (transitive)To give a pile to; to makeshaggy.

Anagrams

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Danish

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/piːlə/,[ˈpʰiːlə]

Noun

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pilec

  1. indefinitepluralofpil

French

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Etymology

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InheritedfromOld French,fromLatinpīla(throughItalianpilafor the “battery” sense). The “tail of a coin” sense is probably derived from previous senses, but it's not known for sure.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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pilef(pluralpiles)

  1. heap,stack
    pilede cartons―stackof cardboard boxes
  2. pillar
  3. battery
    pileélectrique―electricbattery
  4. tails
    pileou face―heads ortails
  5. (heraldry)pile

Derived terms

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Descendants

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Adverb

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pile

  1. (colloquial)just,exactly
  2. (colloquial)dead(of stopping etc.);on the dot,sharp(of time),smack

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Friulian

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Etymology 1

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FromLatinpīla(“mortar”).

Noun

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pilef(pluralpilis)

  1. basin
  2. mortar(vessel used to grind things)
Synonyms
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Etymology 2

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FromLatinpīla(“pillar”).

Noun

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pilef(pluralpilis)

  1. pile(architecture)

Italian

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/ˈpi.le/
  • Rhymes:-ile
  • Hyphenation:pì‧le

Etymology 1

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Pseudo-anglicism,fromEnglishpile(textile).

Noun

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pilem(invariable)

  1. polar fleece,fleece

Etymology 2

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See the etymology of the correspondinglemmaform.

Noun

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pilef

  1. pluralofpila

Anagrams

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Ladino

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):[ˈpi.læ],[ˈpi.lɛ],[ˈpi.le]

Noun

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pilef(Latin spelling,pluralpiles)

  1. Aki Yerushalayim and French orthography spelling ofpilaused inKosovo,North Macedonia,Old YishuvofJerusalem,WestBulgariaandRuse.

Latin

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Noun

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pile

  1. vocativesingularofpilus

Latvian

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Noun

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pilef(5th declension)

  1. drip
    Es pievienoju vaniļas ekstraktapilisavam karstajam kakao.
    I put adripof vanilla extract in my hot cocoa.
  2. dribble(a small amount of a liquid)
  3. drop
    Maisījumam pievienot trīs eļļaspiles.
    Put threedropsof oil into the mixture.

Declension

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Declension ofpile(5th declension)
singular(vienskaitlis) plural(daudzskaitlis)
nominative(nominatīvs) pile piles
accusative(akuzatīvs) pili piles
genitive(ģenitīvs) piles piļu
dative(datīvs) pilei pilēm
instrumental(instrumentālis) pili pilēm
locative(lokatīvs) pilē pilēs
vocative(vokatīvs) pile piles

Lower Sorbian

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/ˈpʲilɛ/,[ˈpʲilə]

Noun

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pile

  1. inflection ofpiła:
    1. dative/locativesingular
    2. nominative/accusativedual

Middle English

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Noun

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pile

  1. Alternative form ofpilwe

Polish

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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pilef

  1. dative/locativesingularofpiła

Portuguese

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Verb

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pile

  1. inflection ofpilar:
    1. first/third-personsingularpresentsubjunctive
    2. third-personsingularimperative

Serbo-Croatian

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Etymology 1

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InheritedfromProto-Slavic*pilę(“chick”).[1]

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/pîle/
  • Hyphenation:pi‧le

Noun

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pȉlen(Cyrillic spellingпи̏ле)

  1. chick
Declension
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Declension ofpile
singular plural
nominative pile pilići
genitive pileta pilića
dative piletu pilićima
accusative pile piliće
vocative pile pilići
locative piletu pilićima
instrumental piletom pilićima
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See also

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References

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  1. ^Matasović, Ranko(2021) “pȉle”,inDubravka Ivšić Majić,Tijmen Pronk,editors,Etimološki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika[Etymological dictionary of the Croatian language] (in Serbo-Croatian), volumes II: O—Ž, Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, page123

Etymology 2

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See the etymology of the correspondinglemmaform.

Verb

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pile(Cyrillic spellingпиле)

  1. third-personpluralpresentofpiliti

Spanish

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Verb

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pile

  1. inflection ofpilar:
    1. first/third-personsingularpresentsubjunctive
    2. third-personsingularimperative

Yola

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Etymology

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FromMiddle Englishpyle,fromOld Frenchpile,fromLatinpīla.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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pile

  1. pile
    • 1867,“A YOLA ZONG”, inSONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY,number 9, page88:
      A clugercheen gother: all, ingpilean in heep,
      A crowd gathered up: all, inpileand in heap,

References

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  • Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland,London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page88
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