pile

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   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

2. 2
   verb

   place or lay as if in a pile

   The teacher piled work on the students until the parents protested

3. 3
   noun

   A mass of things heaped together; a heap.

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

4. 4
   noun

   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

5. 5
   noun

   A mass formed in layers.

   a pile of shot

6. 6
   noun

   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: [...]

7. 7
   noun

   A large amount of money.

   He made a pile from that invention of his.

8. 8
   noun

   A large building, or mass of buildings.

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

Etymology

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.