Word.ws English Dictionary

pile

/paɪl/

pile noun: a mass of things heaped together; a heap.

Noun (1)

pile (plural piles)

  1. (collective) A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
    • I climbed through, and, standing on a pile of stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.1889, H. Rider Haggard, Cleopatra^(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cleopatra_(Haggard)/Book_II/Chapter_XI), Book II: The Fall of Harmachis, →ISBN, Chapter XI
    • Containerization is a long overdue step in bringing our city’s trash collection into the modern era, putting an end to the piles of garbage that have become far too common across our city.2026 April 17, Julia Kerson, quotee, “Mayor Mamdani Takes Major Step Toward Citywide Trash Containerization, Announces Six New Districts”, in NYC.gov, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2026
  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. 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: [...]1717, Samuel Croxall, “Book XIII. [The Funeral of Memnon.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 463
  5. (slang) A 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."1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 192
  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; […]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...
    • The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the fight.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
  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.1893, Benjamin Park, The Voltaic Cell: Its Construction and Its Capacity, page 14
  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. (obsolete) The 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.2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record
    • 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.2012 September 20, Shaun Edwards, “Bent double and lungs burning – how Harlequins train for trophies”, in The Guardian (online)

Verb (1)

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

  1. (often, transitive) 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.
    Synonyms:
    heap
  2. (transitive) 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...2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
  3. (transitive) 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.2010 December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0-2 Blackpool”, in BBC
  4. (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
  5. (transitive) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.
  6. (intransitive) 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.2007 October 7, S.S. Fair, “Vacuum Packed”, in New York Times
    Synonyms:
    accumulate, pile up

Noun (2)

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.
    • 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.1719, Daniel Defoe, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 10th edition, published 1864, Chapter VI, page 68
  4. One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.

Verb (2)

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.

Noun (3)

pile (plural piles)

  1. (plural-normally) A hemorrhoid.

Noun (4)

pile (countable and uncountable, 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; the nap of a cloth.
    • Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile.1785, William Cowper, The Task

Verb (3)

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

  1. (transitive) To give a pile to; to make shaggy.

Noun (5)

pile (plural piles)

  1. (historical) A battery (simple device for converting chemical potential energy into usable electricity).
    1. (historical) A battery consisting of repeated units of alternating types of metal; voltaic pile.

Proper noun capitalized: Pile

Pile (plural Piles)

  1. A surname.

pile meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

pile in Hindi

a pile, heap
चिता citā

pile in Tamil

குவியல், அடித்தூண், முளைக்குற்றி, குவி

pile in Urdu

pile
توپ top

pile in Bengali

স্তূপ, গাদা
More languagesFewer languages
pile in Telugu
పేర్చు pērcu
pile in Malayalam
കൂന, കൂന കൂട്ടുക
pile in Kannada
ರಾಶಿ rāśi
pile in Punjabi
ਪਾਈਲ
pile in Gujarati
ખૂંટો
pile in Odia
ପାଇଲ୍
pile in Sanskrit
निचय nicaya, राशि rāśi
pile in Arabic
كَوْم kawm
pile in Indonesian
tumpukan
pile in Persian
کپه koppe, توده tude, کوت kut, نوک nok

Examples of pile in a sentence

  • 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[…]1892, Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved:
  • 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.2021 September 22, Stephen Roberts, “The writings on the wall...”, in RAIL, number 940, page 75:

All 40 example sentences with pile

Synonyms of pile

All synonyms of pile

Forms of pile

Noun
pluralpiles
Verb
third-person singular presentpiles
present participlepiling
past participlepiled
pastpiled
Proper noun
pluralPiles

Past tense of pile: piled

Plural of pile: piles

Origin of pile

From Middle English pyle, from Old French pile, from Latin pīla (“pillar, pier”).

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.

Apparently from Late Latin pilus. Doublet of pilus.

Words formed from pile

Phrases with pile

24 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with pile

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pile

What does pile mean?
Pile means a mass of things heaped together; a heap.
What is pile in Hindi?
Pile in Hindi is चिता (citā). See Pile meaning in Hindi.
How do you use pile in a sentence?
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[…]
What part of speech is pile?
Pile can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pile?
Pile is pronounced /paɪl/.
What is the plural of pile?
The plural of pile is piles.

Words near pile in the dictionary

  1. pilcorn
  2. pilcorns
  3. pilcrow
  4. pilcrows
  5. pildralazine
  6. pile
  7. pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap
  8. pile driver
  9. pile drivers
  10. pile foundation
  11. pile foundations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pile (page history and authors); Pile (page history and authors); चिता (Hindi) (page history and authors); pile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); توپ (Urdu) (page history and authors); Pile (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); పేర్చు (Telugu) (page history and authors); pile (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ರಾಶಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); pile (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pile (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pile (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pile.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.