Stuff vs Pile - What's the difference?

stuff | pile | Related terms |

Stuff is a related term of pile.

As nouns the difference between stuff and pile

is that stuff is living room while pile is diligence.

stuff

English

(wikipedia stuff)

Noun

(en-noun)

Miscellaneous items; things; (with possessive) personal effects.

*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.

*Sir (c.1569-1626)

*:The workman on his stuff' his skill doth show, / And yet the ' stuff gives not the man his skill.

A material for making clothing; any woven textile, but especially a woollen fabric.

*1992 , Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety , Harper Perennial 2007, p.147:

*:She was going out to buy some lengths of good woollen stuff for Louise's winter dresses.

Abstract substance or character.

*c.1599 , (William Shakespeare),

*:When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

*c.1610 , (William Shakespeare), (The Tempest) ,

*:We are such stuff / As dreams are made on

(lb)

:

*{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild
, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=3 , passage=It had been his intention to go to Wimbledon, but as he himself said: “Why be blooming well frizzled when you can hear all the results over the wireless.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).}}
Substitution for trivial details.

:

(lb) Narcotic drugs, especially heroin.

*1947 , William Burroughs, letter, 11 March:

*:For some idiotic reason the bureaucrats are more opposed to tea than to stuff .

Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.

*Sir (c.1564-1627)

*:He took away locks, and gave away the king's stuff .

(lb) A medicine or mixture; a potion.

:(Shakespeare)

(lb) Refuse or worthless matter; hence, also, foolish or irrational language; nonsense; trash.

*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)

*:Anger would indite / Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write.

(lb) A melted mass of turpentine, tallow, etc., with which the masts, sides, and bottom of a ship are smeared for lubrication.

:

Paper stock ground ready for use. When partly ground, it is called half stuff .

:(Knight)

Usage notes

* The textile sense is increasingly specialized and sounds dated in everyday contexts.

Verb

(en verb)
To fill by crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess.

She stuffed the turkey for Thanksgiving using her secret stuffing recipe.

* Dryden

Lest the gods, for sin, / Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin.

* 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)

The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.

To fill a space with (something) in a compressed manner.

He stuffed his clothes into the closet and shut the door.

* Francis Bacon

Put roses into a glass with a narrow mouth, stuffing them close together and they retain smell and colour.

(used in the passive) To sate.

I’m stuffed after having eaten all that turkey, mashed potatoes and delicious stuffing.

(transitive, British, Australia, New Zealand) To be broken. (rfex)

To sexually penetrate. (rfex)

To be cut off in a race by having one's projected and committed racing line (trajectory) disturbed by an abrupt manoeuvre by a competitor.

I got stuffed by that guy on the supermoto going into that turn, almost causing us to crash.

To preserve a dead bird or animal by filling its skin.

To obstruct, as any of the organs; to affect with some obstruction in the organs of sense or respiration.

* Shakespeare

I'm stuffed , cousin; I cannot smell.

To form or fashion by packing with the necessary material.

* Jonathan Swift

An Eastern king put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal.

(dated) To crowd with facts; to cram the mind of; sometimes, to crowd or fill with false or idle tales or fancies.

Synonyms

* (to sexually penetrate) fuck, root, screw

Derived terms

* * stuff the ballot box * stuffy

Derived terms

* made of sterner stuff * stuff one's face * stuff up * stuff-up * stuff you * stuffed up * get stuffed

Anagrams

* * English placeholder terms

pile
English

Etymology 1
(etyl) . Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil.
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.

Derived terms
* pile bridge * pile cap * pile driver * pile dwelling * pile engine * pile plank * pneumatic pile * screw pile
Verb
(pil)
To drive s into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.

Etymology 2
Apparently from pilus.
Noun
(en noun)
(usually in plural) A hemorrhoid.

Etymology 3
From (etyl) pile, (pille), from (etyl) .
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.

Synonyms
* See also
Verb
(pil)
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.

To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

To add something to a great number.

* {{quote-news, year=2010, date=December 28, author=Owen Phillips, work=BBC
, title= Sunderland 0-2 Blackpool , passage=But as the second half wore on, Sunderland piled forward at every opportunity and their relentless pressure looked certain to be rewarded in the closing stages. }}
(of vehicles) To create a hold-up.

(military) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.

Related terms
* funeral pile * pile bridge * pile driver * pile cap * pile on * pile up
Etymology 4
Partly from (etyl) pil (a variant of peil, .
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 .

Anagrams
* English terms with multiple etymologies ----