pile.
A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
Meaning & usage
A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
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.
A large amount of money.
He made a pile from that invention of his.
A large building, or mass of buildings.
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.
A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground, usually as one of a group that constitutes a foundation.
An atomic pile; an early form of nuclear reactor.
The reverse (or tails) of a coin.
A list or league
Where this word comes from
From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).
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.
To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.
We piled the camel with our loads.
To add something to a great number.
(of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
To form a pile or heap.
Junk piled on the floor as we searched the attic for the old photograph albums.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).
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.
One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.
Where this word comes from
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.
To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
Where this word comes from
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.
A hemorrhoid.
Where this word comes from
Apparently from Late Latin pilus. Doublet of pilus.
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
To give a pile to; to make shaggy.
Where this word comes from
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.
A battery (simple device for converting chemical potential energy into usable electricity).
A battery (simple device for converting chemical potential energy into usable electricity). A battery consisting of repeated units of alternating types of metal; voltaic pile.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.