pile

See also píle, and pīle

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /paɪl/, SAMPA: /pAIl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪl

Etymology 1

Old English pīl, from West Germanic *pīl-, from Latin pīlum. Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil.

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. (obsolete) A 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.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe^[1], edition 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.

4. (heraldry) One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.

Translations

obsolete: dart, arrow

Finnish: piili (fi)

head of an arrow or spear

Finnish: pää (fi) (arrow), kärki (fi) (spear)

stake of pointed timber, steel etc., driven into the earth

Finnish: paalu (fi)

French: pieu (fr)

heraldry: one of the ordinaries

Verb

pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)

1. (transitive) To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.

Translations

to drive piles into

Finnish: paaluttaa (fi)

Etymology 2

Apparently from Late Latin pilus.

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. (usually in plural) A hemorrhoid.

Translations

hemorrhoid — see hemorrhoid

Etymology 3

From Middle French pile, pille, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
   • 1889, H. Rider Haggard, Cleopatra^[2], Book II: The Fall of Harmachis, ISBN 1555211224, Chapter XI:

     I climbed through, and, standing on a pile of stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.

2. (figuratively, 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.

   • 2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, Daily Record:

     And the moment it thumped into the net, Celtic’s march back to the top of the SPL pile also seemed unstoppable.

3. A mass formed in layers; as, a pile of shot.
4. A funeral pile; a pyre.
5. A large building, or mass of buildings.
   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, II.2:

     The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture [...].

6. 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.
7. A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals, as copper and zinc, laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; — commonly called Volta’s pile, voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.
8. (obsolete) The reverse (or tails) of a coin.
9. (figuratively) A list or league

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:lot

Translations

heap

Arabic: كوم (kaum) m. Armenian: կույտ (hy) (kuyt), շեղջ (hy) (šeġǰ), դեզ (hy) (dez), զանգված (hy) (zangvaç) Chinese: Mandarin: 堆 (zh) (duī) Czech: hromada (cs) f. Dutch: stapel (nl) Finnish: kasa (fi), pino (fi) French: monceau (fr) m., tas (fr) m., pile (fr) f. German: Haufen (de) m., Stoß (de) m., Stapel (de) m., (South German, Swiss) Beige (de) f., Halde (de) f. Hungarian: halom (hu)

Indonesian: tumpukan (id) Italian: mucchio (it) m. Japanese: 積み重ね (つみかさね, tsumikasane) Korean: 무더기 (mudeogi) Latin: cumulus (la) Norwegian: haug (no) m., stabel (no) m. Portuguese: pilha f., monte (desordenado) m. Russian: куча (ru) (kúča) f. Spanish: montón (es) m. Swedish: hög (sv) c.

group or list of related items

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

Finnish: pino (fi) French: pile (fr) f.

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

galvanic pile

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: paristo (fi)

French: pile (fr) f. Norwegian: batteri (no) n. Portuguese: pilha (pt) f.

obsolete: reverse of a coin — see tails

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

German: Flor m. (2), Pfahl m. (3), Spitze f. (4)

Spanish: pila f. (6,11)

Verb

pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)

1. (transitive) To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate; to amass; — often with up; as, to pile up wood.
2. (transitive) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.

   We piled the camel with our loads.

3. (transitive) To add something to a great number.
   • 2010 December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0 - 2 Blackpool”, 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.

4. (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.

Translations

to lay or throw into a pile

Finnish: kasata (fi) German: stapeln (de), aufstapeln (de), anhäufen (de), schichten (de), (South German, Swiss) beigen (de)

to overload

Finnish: kasata (fi)

to add something to a great number

Finnish: kasata (fi)

to create a hold-up

Finnish: ruuhkauttaa (fi)

Related terms

• funeral pile
• pile bridge
• pile driver
• pile cap
• pile on
• pile up

Etymology 4

Partly from Anglo-Norman pil (a variant of peil, poil (“hair”)) and partly from its source, Latin pilus (“hair”).

Noun

pile (plural piles)

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; to nap of a cloth.

   Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile. — William Cowper

Translations

fine or short hair

Finnish: haiven (fi)

Portuguese: madeixa (pt) f.

nap of a cloth — see nap

Anagrams

• plie, plié

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Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA: /piːlə/, [ˈpʰiːlə]

Noun

pile c.

1. plural indefinite of pil

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French

Etymology

Latin pila (through Italian for the battery sense). The tail of a coin sense is probably derived from previous senses, but it's not known for sure.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pil/, SAMPA: /pil/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Noun

pile f. (plural piles)

1. heap, stack
2. pillar
3. battery
4. tails (of a coin)

Adverb

pile

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

Anagrams

• plie, plié

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Italian

Noun

pile m. inv.

1. fleece (all senses)

pile f.

1. Plural form of pila.

Anagrams

• peli

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Latin

Noun

pile

1. vocative singular of pilus

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Polish

Noun

pile f.

1. dative singular of piła
2. locative singular of piła

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Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *pilę.

Noun

pȉle n. (Cyrillic spelling пи̏ле)

1. chick

Declension

    declension of pile

	singular	plural
nominative	pile	pilad
genitive	pileta	piladi
dative	piletu	piladi
accusative	pile	pilad
vocative	pile	piladi
locative	piletu	piladi
instrumental	piletom	pilađu / piladi

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Spanish

Verb

pile (infinitive pilar)

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of pilar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of pilar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of pilar.