Pile | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Pile, n.

noun

n. [Fr. pile, Sp. pila, Pg. pilha, Lat. pila, a ball, globe, pila, a pier or mole of stone; Gr. πῖλος, a ball, globe.]

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

Sense 2. A mass regularly formed by rows or layers; a mass designed for a special use, as for burning a corpse.

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

The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the sight. Dryden.

Sense 4. (Elec.) A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals, as copper and zinc, laid up with disks of cloth or paper between them moistened with acid water, for producing a current of electricity;—commonly designated as Volta's pile, the voltaic pile, or the galvanic pile.

☞ The term is sometimes used of any form of apparatus designed to produce a current of dynamic electricity, or as synonymous with battery. It is applied also to an apparatus for generating a current of heat.

Sense 5. A series of iron bars for re-heating.

Pīle, n.

noun

[A-S. pîl, stake, Fr. pile, It., Sp., & Lat. pila, a pillar.]

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.
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.
(Her.) One of the lesser ordinaries, having the form of a wedge, usually placed pale-wise, with the broadest end uppermost, resembling a pile used in laying the foundations of buildings in watery places, whence it has its name.

Cross and pile. See CROSS.

A tapered, vertically shaded pile is shown inside a U-shaped outline. — Pile. (3.)

Pīle, n.

noun

n. [D. pyl, L. Ger. piel, O. H. Ger. pfil, N. H. Ger. pfeil, Dan. & Sw. pil, Icel. pîla, arrow, dart, Lat. pilum, javelin.] The head of an arrow. [Obs.] Even till the pile did rest Upon the bosom of the bow. Chapman.

Pīle, n.

noun

n. [Lat. pilus, hair, O. Fr. peil, poil.] A hair; hence, the fiber of wool, cotton, and the like; hence, also, the nap; the fine hairy substance of the surface of cloth, carpeting, velvet, &c.

Pīle, v. t.

verbtransitive

[imp. & p. p. PILED; p. pr. & vb. n. PILING.]

To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; as, to pile wood or stones; to bring into an aggregate; to accumulate; as, to pile quotations or comments. “The labor of an age in piled stones.” Milton.
To fill above the brim or top.
To break off the awns of, as of thrashed barley. [Prov. Eng.]
To furnish or fill with piles; to drive piles in.

To sheet pile, to drive a piling of planks edge to edge in; to place sheet-piling in. See PILING.—To pile arms or muskets (Mil.), to place three guns together in such a manner that they may stand upright steadily. Syn.—To heap; accumulate; amass.

Pīle, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. [imp. & p. p. PULED; p. pr. & vb. n. PULING.] [Fr. piauler, It. pigolare, Lat. pipilare, from pipire, to peep, pip, chirp.] 1. To cry like a chicken. Bacon. 2. To cry, as a complaining child; to whimper; to whine. It ill becomes such a gallant to whine and pule. Barrow.