heap vs pile what difference

what is difference between heap and pile

English

Etymology

From Middle English heep, from Old English hēap, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (compare Dutch hoop, German Low German Hupen, German Haufen), from Proto-Indo-European *koupos (“hill”) (compare Lithuanian kaũpas, Albanian qipi (“stack”), Avestan ????????????????‎ (kåfa)).

Pronunciation

• enPR: hēp, IPA^(key): /hiːp/
• ((Ireland), dated) enPR: hāp, IPA^(key): /heːp/
• Rhymes: -iːp

Noun

heap (plural heaps)

1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement touching an Holy War

     a heap of vassals and slaves

   • 1876, Anthony Trollope, s:Doctor Thorne

     He had plenty of friends, heaps of friends in the parliamentary sense

2. A pile or mass; a collection of things laid in a body, or thrown together so as to form an elevation.

   • Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.
3. A great number or large quantity of things.
   • 1679, Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England

     a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations

   • 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, s:Will o’ the Mill

     I have noticed a heap of things in my life.

4. (computing) A data structure consisting of trees in which each node is greater than all its children.
5. (computing) Memory that is dynamically allocated.

6. (colloquial) A dilapidated place or vehicle.
   • 1991 May 12, “Kidnapped!” Jeeves and Wooster, Series 2, Episode 5:

     Chuffy: It’s on a knife edge at the moment, Bertie. If he can get planning permission, old Stoker’s going to take this heap off my hands in return for vast amounts of oof.

7. (colloquial) A lot, a large amount

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lot

Hyponyms

• compost heap

Derived terms

• heapful
• heapmeal
• it takes a heap of living to make a house a home

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: ipi

Translations

Verb

heap (third-person singular simple present heaps, present participle heaping, simple past and past participle heaped)

1. (transitive) To pile in a heap.

2. (transitive) To form or round into a heap, as in measuring.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act I, scene II, verses 40-42

     Cry a reward, to him who shall first bring
     News of that vanished Arabian,
     A full-heap’d helmet of the purest gold.

3. (transitive) To supply in great quantity.

Synonyms

• (pile in a heap): amass, heap up, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up

Derived terms

• heap coals of fire on someone’s head
• heaped (adj), heaping (adj)
• heap up
• overheap

Translations

Adverb

heap (not comparable)

1. (offensive, representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans) Very.
   • 1980, Joey Lee Dillard, Perspectives on American English (page 417)

     We are all familiar with the stereotyped broken English which writers of Western stories, comic strips, and similar literature put into the mouths of Indians: ‘me heap big chief’, ‘you like um fire water’, and so forth.

   • 2004, John Robert Colombo, The Penguin Book of Canadian Jokes (page 175)

     Once upon a time, a Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are captured by the Red Indians […] He approaches the Englishman, pinches the skin of his upper arm, and says, “Hmmm, heap good skin, nice and thick.

Anagrams

• HAPE, HEPA, epha, hep A

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz.

Cognate with Old Frisian hāp, Old Saxon hōp, Old High German houf. Old Norse hópr differs from the expected form *haupr because it is a borrowing from Middle Low German.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xæ͜ɑːp/, [hæ͜ɑːp]

Noun

hēap m

1. group
   • late 10th century, Ælfric, “The Nativity of St. Paul the Apostle”

2. heap

Declension

Derived terms

• hēapmǣlum

Descendants

• Middle English: heep
  • English: heap

Portuguese

Etymology

From English heap

Noun

heap m or f (in variation) (plural heaps)

1. (computing) heap (tree-based data structure)

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian hāp, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (“heap”).

Noun

heap c (plural heapen or heappen, diminutive heapke)

1. heap, pile
2. mass, gang, horde

Further reading

• “heap”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /paɪl/
• Rhymes: -aɪl

Etymology 1

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

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
2. (informal) A group or list of related items up for consideration, especially in some kind of selection process.

3. A mass formed in layers.

4. A funeral pile; a pyre.
5. (slang) A large amount of money.

   Synonyms: bundle, (both informal) mint, (colloquial) small fortune

6. 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 […]

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Aeneid

     The pile o’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 the pile of flats of which Pierston occupied one floor […]

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.
9. (architecture, civil engineering) A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground.

   Hyponyms: friction pile, bearing pile, end bearing pile

   Coordinate terms: pile driver, pile 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

    • 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.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lot

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive, often used with the preposition “up”) To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate

2. (transitive) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.

3. (transitive) To add something to a great number.
4. (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
5. (transitive, military) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.

Synonyms

• (lay or throw into a pile): heap, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up

Translations

Related terms

Etymology 2

From Old English pīl, from Latin pīlum (“heavy javelin”). Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil. Doublet of pilum.

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

Derived terms

Translations

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

Etymology 3

Apparently from Late Latin pilus.

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. (usually in the plural) A hemorrhoid.

Translations

Etymology 4

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.

Noun

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.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task

     Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile.

Translations

Verb

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.

Anagrams

• Lipe, Peil, Piel, plie, plié

Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piːlə/, [ˈpʰiːlə]

Noun

pile c

1. indefinite plural of pil

French

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin pīla (through Italian pila 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^(key): /pil/

Noun

pile f (plural piles)

1. heap, stack

2. pillar
3. battery

4. tails

5. (heraldry) pile

Derived terms

• pile ou face

Descendants

• → Haitian Creole: anpil
• → Khmer: ពិល (pɨl)
• → Malagasy: pila
• → Rade: pil
• → Turkish: pil
• → Vietnamese: pin

Adverb

pile

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

Derived terms

• pile-poil

Further reading

• “pile” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• plie, plié

Friulian

Etymology 1

From Latin pīla (“mortar”).

Noun

pile f (plural pilis)

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

Synonyms

• (basin): vâs
• (mortar): mortâr

Etymology 2

From Latin pīla (“pillar”).

Noun

pile f (plural pilis)

1. pile (architecture)

Italian

Etymology

Pseudo-anglicism, from English pile (textile).

Noun

pile m (invariable)

1. polar fleece, fleece

Noun

pile f

1. plural of pila

Anagrams

• peli, plié

Latin

Noun

pile

1. vocative singular of pilus

Latvian

Noun

pile f (5th declension)

1. drip

2. dribble (a small amount of a liquid)
3. drop

Declension

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʲilɛ/, [ˈpʲilə]

Noun

pile

1. inflection of piła:
   1. dative/locative singular
   2. nominative/accusative dual

Middle English

Noun

pile

1. Alternative form of pilwe

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʲi.lɛ/

Noun

pile f

1. dative/locative singular of piła

Portuguese

Verb

pile

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of pilar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of pilar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of pilar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of pilar

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *pilę (“chick”); but also a *pisklę is reconstructed related to *piskati (“to utter shrilly”).

Pronunciation

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

Noun

pȉle n (Cyrillic spelling пи̏ле)

1. chick

Declension

See also

• kokoš
• pijevac / pevac
• pileći gulaš

Verb

pile (Cyrillic spelling пиле)

1. third-person plural present of piliti

Spanish

Verb

pile

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.

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