Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) A dart; an arrow.

The head of an arrow or spear.

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.

* {{quote-book, year=1719

, edition=10th edition , year_published=1864 , author= , title= , chapter= , section=Chapter VI citation , page=68 , passage=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.}}

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

Noun

(en noun)

(usually in plural) A hemorrhoid.

Noun

(en noun)

A mass of things heaped together; a heap.

* {{quote-book, year=1889

, author= , title= , volume_plain=Book II: The Fall of Harmachis , section=Chapter XI citation , isbn=1555211224 , page= , passage=I climbed through, and, standing on a pile of stones, lifted and dragged Cleopatra after me.}}

(figuratively, 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 .

* {{quote-news, year=2011

, date=December 29 , author=Keith Jackson , title=SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0 , work=Daily Record citation , page= , passage=And the moment it thumped into the net, Celtic’s march back to the top of the SPL pile also seemed unstoppable.}}

A mass formed in layers.

a pile of shot

A funeral pile; a pyre.

(Dryden)

A large building, or mass of buildings.

* Dryden

The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the fight.

* 1817 , (Walter Scott), Rob Roy , II.2:

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

* 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

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.

A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals, as copper and zinc, laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; — commonly called Volta’s pile, voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.

(obsolete) The reverse (or tails) of a coin.

(figuratively) A list or league

* '>citation

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.

Noun

(en noun)

Hair, especially when very fine or short; the fine underfur of certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.)

The raised hairs, loops or strands of a fabric; the nap of a cloth.

* (William Cowper)

Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile .

Noun

(countable, uncountable) Any coniferous tree of the genus Pinus .

* , chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess), chapter=3 citation , passage=Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine , while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.}}

(countable) Any tree (usually coniferous) which resembles a member of this genus in some respect.

(uncountable) The wood of this tree.

(archaic) A pineapple.

Noun

(en noun)

(archaic) A painful longing.