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What is "pile"

Crossword clues for pile

pile
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pile
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bundle/pile of laundry
▪ a pile of laundry waiting to be put away
a pile/stack of boxes
▪ There was a pile of boxes in the street outside the house.
load/pile of crap (also bunch of crap American English)
▪ The game was a load of crap.
load/pile of crap (also bunch of crap American English)
▪ That’s a bunch of crap! I never said that.
▪ He came out with a load of crap about how he’d tried to call me yesterday.
piece/pile/load etc of shit
pile driver
pile of ironing
▪ I’m tired and there’s still a pile of ironing to do.
the bottom of the ladder/pile/heap (=the lowest position in society, an organization etc)
▪ Immigrants were at the bottom of the pile.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
big
▪ Maria went to the University of Krakow Business School and ended up making an even bigger pile of money.
▪ They are succeeding by turning big piles into little piles, not the other way around.
▪ I wondered how big the pile at home would have to be to last the year.
deep
▪ A deep pile in your living room!
▪ A deep pile Raking ashes into a pile would then be automatically reinforced.
▪ On this occasion the officials thrown from the window managed to survive, since they landed in deep piles of castle refuse.
great
▪ Twentythree stainless steel dishes, Denby casseroles and Pyrex serving sets have gone to that great built-in-obsolescence pile in the sky.
▪ Though the streets had been cleared, the plow had knocked an even greater pile of snow on to the vehicle.
▪ A great pile of felled Trees.
huge
▪ Bert started to move a huge pile of cardboard boxes which had once housed a variety of motor spares.
▪ Outside, the huge piles of snow are melting.
▪ And heaped up in one corner, almost touching the ceiling, was a huge pile of junk.
▪ I was allowed to play in a huge pile of white sand and to melt wire with a hot soldering gun.
▪ Where it was melting a huge pile of boulder clay was built up, as a terminal moraine.
▪ The outcome is likely to be a huge pile of dead birds and further alienation.
▪ It seemed a long time since we had first set eyes on that huge pile of posts and wire in the farmyard.
▪ He had a huge pile of paper cuttings etc.
large
▪ A truck appeared, and rocks and stones were emptied in a large pile.
▪ In the old system, that would have been a single, homogenized function located in a single large functional pile somewhere.
▪ But, before he could say anything, Mrs Danby emerged from round a large pile of tins of tuna-fish.
▪ There was a large pile of bones in the yard, going green with mould, which were eventually sent for processing.
▪ And in its place, stacked high in the subterranean vault, was a large pile of guns and ammunition.
▪ On her right hand she had a large pile of blanks.
▪ Which means you end up with a larger pile of results from your search.
▪ More obvious signs might be a large pile of empty bottles, the smell of drink, or unwashed glasses.
little
▪ He pulled off his work jeans and threw them on to the little pile in the corner.
▪ They are succeeding by turning big piles into little piles, not the other way around.
▪ Still guarding his little pile of sticks no doubt, or even jumping over the broom with a Romany.
▪ She averted her eyes from the pathetic little piles of unsold merchandise in the grocery store.
▪ Place left his little pile with his sister, she kept it under the floorboards.
▪ And in the morning when I went into the bathroom, there was a little pile of something beside my toothbrush.
▪ Two of the black lacquer cabinets had been opened and china lay in little piles outside them on the carpet.
neat
▪ Books and papers in neat rows and piles crammed all the available space between floor and ceiling.
▪ I picked up the neat pile of clothing and placed it on the chair near the stove.
▪ It included, for example, a neat pile of bullets, the artist being flown in to do the piling.
▪ I tried the next drawer, which was filled with neat piles of nylon underpants in a quite large old-lady style.
▪ Wrapped in copious instruction leaflets and next to a neat pile of syringes, formidable quantities of snakebite serum had thoughtfully been provided.
▪ I wanted to pick up the neat pile of paper lying on the bed and fling it into the air.
▪ The room has remained untouched, its files and papers in the same neat piles the actor had left them in.
▪ A long, rather stark couch held neat piles of clean kandoras and white head scarves which were laid there daily.
small
▪ A small pile of cards lay before her, now horribly familiar.
▪ One is a small pile of undated photographs I have from my early childhood.
▪ He knelt down to place a small pile of change in her hands.
▪ There was no one in the office. just small piles of handbills on a table.
▪ Bodie upturned the waste bin and sorted through the small pile of chewing-gum wrappers, empty cigarette packets, and cigarette butts.
▪ As she worked, adding to the pitifully small pile, she could hear Travis talking on the radio behind her.
▪ Up behind the engine, two baggage handlers were loading a small pile of boxes.
▪ On the floor besides Zach's bed was a small pile of books.
thick
▪ Folly slipped out of bed and wriggled her toes in the thick, silky pile of the carpet.
▪ The situation is improved by adding velvet curtains, acoustic tiles and a thick pile carpet.
▪ He lay back on his thick pile of cushions and chuckled.
▪ She saw feet sinking into the thick pile of the new rugs whose abstract patterns evoked the work of contemporary artists.
▪ This is ideal for thick yarns and pile knitting, but not for ordinary work.
▪ Collected under her hands they made a thick pile.
▪ Her feet sank into the thick pile of the carpet.
■ NOUN
cash
▪ Meanwhile, Vistec is making the most of the recession and has a Pounds 4m cash pile.
■ VERB
add
▪ Then, the extra females-some of them mated by the fortunate male-wander in and add to the pile.
▪ Q: How should the material be added to the pile?
▪ He marched up to the desk and handed over two slender files to add to the pile at Spatz's elbow.
leave
▪ The confused Night Goblins scattered leaving piles of dead in their wake.
▪ Other days I think how close they came to destroying the Union and leaving it in a pile of ashes.
▪ She left the pile on the desk where she had found it, and made her way to where Bill was sitting.
▪ The two of them wrote it all down on numbered placards they left with each pile.
▪ Brick by brick, plasterboard by plasterboard ... until all we had left was a pile of rubble.
lie
▪ Ideally, the carpet should lie with the pile running away from the main, or only, window in the room.
▪ Jinju lay curled atop a pile of grass and weeds, neither crying nor complaining, a grin frozen on her face.
▪ Before him lay a pile of dead Tilean crossbowmen, polluting the sacred soil of Bretonnia with their inferior foreign blood.
▪ The guts lay in a smoking pile beneath the crossed feet.
▪ Behind, lay a pile of chained human bones, a slumped fettered skeleton.
▪ On a drafting table against one wall lay a pile of ships' blueprints: cross-sectioned schooners, submarines, slave galleys.
▪ Ace's blood-soaked jacket lay on top of the pile.
▪ But he'd probably be dead, frozen, lying under a pile of leaves, dead from starvation.
look
▪ Government ministers seem to think that they look at a pile of brochures.
▪ He looked through the pile, trying to decide which one to pick.
▪ He looked through the pile of engraved cards on his escritoire.
▪ It looks like a pile of dead leaves in there.
▪ Objectively I looked like a pile of coathangers, but objectivity was some-thing I had lost long ago.
▪ She looked over at the pile of burned clothing she had shed like a snake's skin, and shuddered.
▪ I looked at the pile of dead, and shivered.
place
▪ He knelt down to place a small pile of change in her hands.
put
▪ Similar sizes were put together and the piles were symmetrical.
▪ Jesse Johnson hopped out of his dory and put himself be-tween the pile of bodies and the wharf.
▪ The next time they were counted they were put in piles of four.
▪ The secrecy envelope is put in a pile with other such envelopes that are later opened and the ballots counted.
▪ Do not put piles of books or magazines up the sides of the stairs.
▪ Q: What can I put in the compost pile?
sort
▪ FitzAlan's brother-in-law sat there, sorting through piles of official-looking documents.
▪ When I entered our room I found Mum had down two more vases and was sorting out a pile of pawn tickets.
▪ Bodie upturned the waste bin and sorted through the small pile of chewing-gum wrappers, empty cigarette packets, and cigarette butts.
▪ I came home, put them on the floor and they virtually sorted themselves into two piles.
▪ One was occupied by a plump woman in her forties, who was briskly sorting through a pile of letters.
stack
▪ Components were stacked in piles all over the factory floor like the contents of an attic.
▪ Ready to fire, the shell was stacked on a pile near the gun crew.
▪ When they had sorted the collection completely, they stacked each set in piles.
▪ Inside the truck I could see what looked like a thousand frozen turkeys stacked up like a pile of stones.
▪ During the morning the accumulated household junk had been stacked in piles beside the steps.
▪ Bunches of bananas are stacked in tidy piles.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a pile of dirty dishes
▪ a thick red pile carpet
▪ Can you separate those out into two piles - A to L and M to Z, please?
▪ Clare was having too much fun playing in the leaf pile to come inside.
▪ Greg carried the pile of ironed shirts upstairs.
▪ Her office is a terrible mess - there are piles of papers all over the floor.
▪ Put those letters on the other pile.
▪ The books were arranged in neat piles on her desk.
▪ The folded laundry was separated into three piles.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And judging by the prodigious pile of diatribes posted in the last year, a lot of folks are taking advantage.
▪ Eventually it carried out a more temporary repair, costing £500 000, which entailed replacing 30 of the 113 wooden piles.
▪ He found himself in enormous buildings, with a labyrinth of rooms, and he was lost in the pile.
▪ Helen noticed a red rug, piles of books on the floor, white eyelet cafe curtains on the windows.
▪ I loved to pick through trash piles and collect empty bottles, tin cans with Pretty labels, and discarded magazines.
▪ Soon, all that is left is a pile of bones.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
high
▪ The passengers were perched atop sacks of rice piled high in the back of the vehicle.
in
▪ There were four of us piling in on it.
▪ Xerox was literally synonymous with copying machines; the revenues piled in and the profits piled up.
▪ Clouds were piling in, and there was more rain on the way.
▪ We breakfasted, then all piled in.
▪ All kinds of people Molassi had been winding up about their music taste started piling in.
▪ Ben Turner, 18, admitted knocking him down but said he tried to stop the others from piling in.
▪ Pierre came to pick them up in the long Mercedes and they piled in with all their bags and appurtenances.
▪ So it was the bait piled in by J.J. and myself the first night of a season in the early 1970s.
on
▪ Then we all piled on to the team bus.
▪ On Saturday, Dole piled on, using Napolitano to blast Clinton judicial appointees as soft on crime.
▪ If the though sounds tempting but you fear the pounds will pile on, think again.
▪ Unfortunately, the words seemed to be taunting, or piling on.
▪ Yet even that is not enough: Danielewski piles on even more narrative frames, ultimately to the novel's detriment.
▪ Even the wind experts are piling on.
▪ Loopy Lil went on piling more and more things haphazardly on to the tray.
▪ The pounds pile on as they break for split-pea soup, munch chocolate-chip cookies, dine on shrimp and pasta.
up
▪ He piled up snow and covered the remains.
▪ That snow piled up outside windows in Washington and elsewhere in the Northeast may slow business even more.
▪ The pledges of loyalty are piling up.
▪ Their bodies piled up in the streets before the authorities could muster the men needed to bury them.
▪ Oh, the points he is piling up.
▪ He stroked the steering wheel, words piling up.
▪ The station has been converted to burn confiscated marijuana which has been piling up in the warehouses of the local police forces.
▪ As the corkscrew meats accumulate in the cup and the delicately colored shells pile up at my feet, examples multiply.
■ NOUN
agony
▪ He had four chances of piling on the agony for the Londoners but could not find a way past keeper Bob Bolder.
▪ Woosnam piled on the agony with four successive birdies.
▪ It piled on the agony for Glasgow, who had passed up another chance two minutes before the break.
car
▪ They all piled into their cars and borrowed tractors, and headed for the Stanlow refinery.
▪ They piled into the car and headed off to the local market to sell the shot glasses and recoup cash.
▪ They burst into laughter and we piled once again into his car for another search.
▪ The drivers piled them into cars and drove off to return shortly for another load.
▪ Quickly they piled into the car, which sped noisily and dangerously off through the quotidian traffic.
▪ Four kids from the Nashville, two girls and two boys, were piling into a car.
▪ We pile into the car as if embarking on a real motor trip.
hair
▪ A red-haired girl, her hair piled atop her head beneath a hat the shape of a butterfly, noticed him watching.
▪ Runnerup: Helen Hunt, hair piled up and wearing a sleek, shining Isaac Mizrahi.
head
▪ A red-haired girl, her hair piled atop her head beneath a hat the shape of a butterfly, noticed him watching.
plate
▪ He has a lot piled on his plate.
▪ Charles piled up his plate and sat on his own in the corner.
▪ Others simply pile their plates high with mountains of mashed potatoes and various meatless side dishes.
pound
▪ Most comfort eaters enjoy it while they're eating, but the downside is they soon start to pile on the pounds.
▪ To his relief the producers didn't want him to pile on the pounds.
▪ She did slim down a couple of years ago but has piled on the pounds again.
pressure
▪ Pressure Gornei piled on the pressure from the start and by the end of the contest Griffin's face was badly swollen.
▪ Move round him, piling on the pressure from different directions.
▪ Woodmill piled the pressure on and were finally rewarded with a Martin Shores goal with only thirty seconds left.
▪ And Walsh piled on the pressure to get promises of advertising business.
▪ They piled on the pressure to win handsomely by 30 shots.
▪ Bristol piled on fierce pressure and Middlesbrough paid for their lack of enterprise when Bristol equalised after 67 minutes.
▪ Say she enticed him into the woods and became demanding in every way and heavily emotional, piling on pressure.
snow
▪ She forced the sad and crushed skull below the snow and piled the ice above it.
▪ That snow piled up outside windows in Washington and elsewhere in the Northeast may slow business even more.
▪ With all that snow piling up outside it seemed like the only thing to do.
▪ Which brings us to the snow job piling up around the budget negotiations themselves.
▪ Winter snow piles on ice that covers streets and sidewalks.
table
▪ She flittered in the kitchen, piling crockery on to the table. plates overflowed with party food.
top
▪ His hair is reddish-brown, streaked with grey and piled on top of his head.
▪ Instead, he piled loss on top of loss.
▪ Human beings are the same: they're piled on top of one another.
▪ One set of regents piles on top of another.
▪ It was the way one thing had piled on top of another that did it.
▪ The girl was lying on her side with her pink leotard and blue corduroy pants piled on top of her.
▪ The animals pile one on top of another in a confusion of life.
▪ For them, new losses would be piled on top of existing losses.
■ VERB
begin
▪ Guilty secrets begin to pile up that may be disclosed to no one else at all, not even friends or family.
▪ She kicked a cardboard box in his direction, and he began piling the leaves and petals inside.
continue
▪ So the dinosaurs could in theory have continued to pile on genetic advantages.
▪ Meanwhile, parts bound for the striking plants are continuing to pile up.
▪ Leeds continued to pile on the points as Iro burst through for loose forward Hanley to score a seventh try.
▪ We can continue to pile up such program models indefinitely.
▪ Across the city the flowers, teddy bears and other cuddly toys were continuing to pile up.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Dirty dishes were left piled in the sink.
▪ Gifts were piled under the Christmas tree.
▪ Has anyone else noticed that towels dry faster when you don't pile them in the middle of the floor?
▪ He piled his dirty laundry up just outside my door.
▪ Mattie piled her plate with food.
▪ We called the police when we noticed her newspapers and mail were piling up.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He piled up snow and covered the remains.
▪ He scooped out a hollow and lying down piled the leaves over him like a thick coverlet.
▪ He walked in and saw her sitting on the floor, piling books into a carton.
▪ His armour was piled not three yards away, arrayed ready to be donned at short notice.
▪ Recently it has started to pile up quite quickly.
▪ Storm clouds piling up against Black Hills to east.
▪ The girls who pile into the exhibition centre are usually accompanied by a flock of female relatives.
▪ This I corrected in a grocery store, piled with butter and big cheeses and shelves of pickles and bread.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
pile

Piles \Piles\, n. pl. [L. pila a ball. Cf. Pill a medicine.] (Med.) The small, troublesome tumors or swellings about the anus and lower part of the rectum which are technically called hemorrhoids. See Hemorrhoids.

Note: [The singular pile is sometimes used.]

Blind piles, hemorrhoids which do not bleed.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pile

"mass, heap," early 15c., originally "pillar, pier of a bridge," from Middle French pile and directly from Latin pila "stone barrier, pillar, pier" (see pillar). Sense development in Latin from "pier, harbor wall of stones," to "something heaped up." In English, sense of "heap of things" is attested from mid-15c. (the verb in this sense is recorded from mid-14c.). The meaning "large building" (late 14c.) is probably the same word.

pile

"heavy pointed beam," from Old English pil "stake," also "arrow," from Latin pilum heavy javelin of the Roman foot soldier, literally "pestle" (source of Old Norse pila, Old High German pfil, German Pfeil "arrow"), of uncertain origin.

pile

"soft, raised surface upon cloth," mid-14c., "downy plumage," from Anglo-French pyle or Middle Dutch pijl, both from Latin pilus "a hair" (source of Italian pelo, Old French pel). Phonological evidence rules out transmission of the English word via Old French cognate peil, poil. Meaning "nap upon cloth" is from 1560s.

pile

"to heap up," mid-14c.; see pile (n.1). Related: Piled; piling. Figurative verbal expression pile on "attack vigorously, attack en masse," is from 1894, American English.

Wiktionary
pile

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context obsolete English) 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. vb. (context transitive English) To drive pile#Nouns into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles. Etymology 2

n. (context usually in plural English) A hemorrhoid. Etymology 3

n. A mass of things heaped together; a heap. vb. 1 (context transitive English) 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 (context transitive English) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load. Etymology 4

n. 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.

Related phrases:
WordNet
pile

  1. n. a collection of objects laid on top of each other [syn: heap, mound, cumulus]

  2. (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent; "a batch of letters"; "a deal of trouble"; "a lot of money"; "he made a mint on the stock market"; "it must have cost plenty" [syn: batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint, muckle, peck, plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy sum, wad, whole lot, whole slew]

  3. a large sum of money (especially as pay or profit); "she made a bundle selling real estate"; "they sank megabucks into their new house" [syn: bundle, big bucks, megabucks, big money]

  4. fine soft dense hair (as the fine short hair of cattle or deer or the wool of sheep or the undercoat of certain dogs) [syn: down]

  5. battery consisting of voltaic cells arranged in series; the earliest electric battery devised by Volta [syn: voltaic pile, galvanic pile]

  6. a column of wood or steel or concrete that is driven into the ground to provide support for a structure [syn: spile, piling, stilt]

  7. the yarn (as in a rug or velvet or corduroy) that stands up from the weave; "for uniform color and texture tailors cut velvet with the pile running the same direction" [syn: nap]

  8. a nuclear reactor that uses controlled nuclear fission to generate energy [syn: atomic pile, atomic reactor, chain reactor]

pile

  1. v. arrange in stacks; "heap firewood around the fireplace"; "stack your books up on the shelves" [syn: stack, heap]

  2. press tightly together or cram; "The crowd packed the auditorium" [syn: throng, mob, pack, jam]

  3. place or lay as if in a pile; "The teacher piled work on the students until the parents protested"

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Pile

Pile may refer to:

Pile (abstract data type)

In computer science, a pile is an abstract data type for storing data in a loosely ordered way. There are two different usages of the term; one refers to an ordered deque, the other to an improved heap.

Pile (heraldry)

In heraldry, a pile is a charge usually counted as one of the ordinaries (figures bounded by straight lines and occupying a definite portion of the shield).

It consists of a wedge emerging from the upper edge of the shield and converging to a point near the base. If it touches the base, it is blazoned throughout.

Pile (singer)

, better known by her stage name Pile , is a Korean-Japanese singer, voice actress and actress from Tokyo. She is known for her role as Maki Nishikino in the Love Live! multimedia franchise. Her first roles were minor parts in TV series and films during 2006. She debuted as a singer after she was selected in a 2006 Japan-wide audition, and she made her voice acting debut in Love Live! in 2010.

Pile (textile)

In textiles, pile is the raised surface or nap of a fabric, which is made of upright loops or strands of yarn. Examples of pile textiles are carpets, corduroy, velvet, plush, and Turkish towels. The word is derived from Latin pilus for " hair"

The surface and the yarn in these fabrics also called "pile". In particular "pile length" or "pile depth" refer to the length of the yarn strands (half-length of the loops).

The types of pile include:

  • loop pile
  • uncut pile
  • cut pile
  • knotted pile
  • tufted pile
  • woven pile
  • cord pile
  • twist pile
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "pile".

Using a tossed coin to make sure she chose the piles randomly, she buried one acorn in the first and the other in the second.

Pekka said, and went back to the pile of dirt in which she had - she knew she had - planted the acorn now missing.

He, I know--for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made--thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end.

Commander Kurt Lennox stood aft of the tall pile of clutter, heart pounding.

Entering the lodge, Aganippe lay down beside the glowing stones piled in a central pit.

Piles are not only in and of themselves very painful and annoying, but often greatly aggravate and even cause other grave and painful affections, and should, therefore, not be neglected.

Soho Greek, originally a native of Agios Georgios, who emigrated to London twenty years ago, made his pile as a restaurateur, and has now come back, as these folk do, and wants to settle at home.

The agribusiness was thriving in that part of the state, and ever since the Copa de Oro Dam had been constructed in the late Sixties, the recreation dollars had been piling up, too.

Nearly half of the ceiling had collapsed, and the resulting pile of polyp slivers had agglutinated in an alarmingly concave wall, as though the avalanche had halted half-way through.

As they pressed deeper into Edinur, they began to pass entire families who were heading for the towns, perhaps Aldern, with all their possessions piled on wagons drawn by horses or bullocks.

Lynn Flewelling Seregil must have been generous, Alec thought as she piled his trencher with plump sausages and oat porridge, then fetched a pitcher of milk and some hot ash cakes to go with it.

Seeing Alec at the window, he sauntered over in the direction of a refuse pile in a corner of the yard.

With a grinding rumble, an entire section of the pile gave way just below where Alec stood, sweeping the swordsman over the edge.

Spilled coals were scattered across the paving slabs and atop the rumpled velvet, burning holes in the rich pile, and the glass alembic was now a jagged splash of greenish shards.

All the other customers had been thrown hundreds of yards away in every direction, and the merchandise had exploded into its component ions, except for the alembic, which sat in the center of the circle shining like an atomic pile.