PILE, noun [Latin pila.]

1. A heap; a mass or collection of things in a roundish or elevated form; as a pile of stones; a pile of bricks; a pile of wood or timber; a pile of ruins.

2. A collection of combustibles for burning a dead body; as a funeral pile

3. A large building or mass of buildings; an edifice.

The pile o'erlook'd the town and drew the sight.

4. A heap of balls or shot laid in horizontal courses, rising into a pyramidical form.

PILE, noun [Latin palus.]

1. A large stake or piece of timber, pointed and driven into the earth, as at the bottom of a river, or in a harbor where the ground is soft, for the support of a building or other superstructure. The stadthouse in Amsterdam is supported by piles.

2. One side of a coin; originally, a punch or puncheon used in stamping figures on coins, and containing the figures to be impressed. Hence the arms-side of a coin is called the pile and the head the cross, which was formerly in the place of the head. Hence cross and pile

3. In heraldry, an ordinary in form of a point inverted or a stake sharpened.

PILE, noun [Latin pilum.] The head of an arrow.

PILE, noun [Latin pilus.] Properly, a hair; hence, the fiber of wool, cotton and the like; hence, the nap, the fine hairy substance of the surface of cloth.

PILE, verb transitive To lay or throw into a heap; to collect many things into a mass; as, to pile wood or stones.

1. To bring into an aggregate; to accumulate; as, to pile quotations or comments.

2. To fill with something heaped.

3. To fill above the brim or top.

4. To break off the awns of threshed barley. [Local.]