Pile I Sense Paɪl Documents Top Made Noun

• a pile of clothes/paper
• i found it in a pile of documents on his desk.
• the hats were stacked in neat piles.
• i've sorted the books into three separate piles.

pile

1. a number of things that have been placed on top of each other
• a pile of clothes/paper
• I found it in a pile of documents on his desk.
• The hats were stacked in neat piles.
• I've sorted the books into three separate piles.

Extra Examples

• He arranged the documents in neat piles.
• He was busy behind a pile of papers on his desk.
• I grabbed a shirt from the top of the pile.
• I leafed through the pile of documents until I found the one I wanted.
• I pulled my diary from beneath a pile of files.
• I put the letter in the envelope and placed it on the pile.
• I sorted the clothes into two piles.
• Just add that application to the pile.
• She closed the magazine and threw it back on the pile.
• The clothes were in a pile on the floor.
• The money lay amid a pile of unopened letters.
• She was sorting the books into piles.
2. a mass of something that is high in the middle and wider at the bottom than at the top
• SYNONYM heap
  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/heap_2
• piles of dirty washing
• The house was reduced to a pile of rubble.
• He threw the remaining stones onto the pile.

Extra Examples

• He was spreading a small pile of manure around the strawberry plants.
• The body was hidden under a pile of leaves.
• There was a pile of dirty on the floor.
• He dumped a pile of dirty clothes onto the floor.
3. a lot of something
• He made a pile of cash on the sale of his house.
• He walked out leaving a pile of debt behind him.
• I have got piles of work to do.
4. the short threads, pieces of wool, etc. that form the soft surface of carpets and some types of cloth such as velvet
• a deep-pile carpet
• Corduroy is the poor man’s velvet; its pile is made of cotton rather than silk or satin.
5. a large wooden, metal or stone post that is fixed into the ground and used to support a building, bridge, etc.
6. a large impressive building
• a Victorian pile built as a private hospital
• her family's ancestral pile
7. in the least/most important position in a group of people or things
• It’s been 20 years since a British player was top of the pile.
• The government is doing little to help those on the bottom of the social pile.
8. to make a lot of money
• The family made its pile from oil.
• I bet they made an absolute pile out of the deal.

Word Origin

• noun senses 1 to 3, noun sense 6 late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin pila ‘pillar, pier’. noun sense 5 Old English pīl ‘dart, arrow’, also ‘pointed stake’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch pijl and German Pfeil, from Latin pilum ‘(heavy) javelin’. noun sense 4 Middle English (in the sense ‘downy feather’): from Latin pilus ‘hair’. The current sense dates from the mid 16th cent.