piles Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun pain caused by venous swelling at or inside the anal sphincter
    haemorrhoid; hemorrhoid.
  2. noun a large number or amount
    heaps; rafts; wads; lots; scads; slews; tons; gobs; scores; oodles; loads; dozens; stacks; lashings.
    • made lots of new friends
    • she amassed stacks of newspapers
  3. noun a collection of objects laid on top of each other
    agglomerate; cumulus; pile; heap; mound; cumulation.
  4. noun (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
    plenty; great deal; pot; sight; flock; mint; slew; mountain; deal; wad; muckle; pile; lot; mickle; raft; quite a little; passel; hatful; mess; spate; heap; peck; stack; good deal; batch; tidy sum; mass.
    • a batch of letters
    • a deal of trouble
    • a lot of money
    • he made a mint on the stock market
    • see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos
    • it must have cost plenty
    • a slew of journalists
    • a wad of money
  5. noun a large sum of money (especially as pay or profit)
    big bucks; megabucks; pile; big money; bundle.
    • she made a bundle selling real estate
    • they sank megabucks into their new house
  6. noun fine soft dense hair (as the fine short hair of cattle or deer or the wool of sheep or the undercoat of certain dogs)
    down; pile.
  7. noun battery consisting of voltaic cells arranged in series; the earliest electric battery devised by Volta
    pile; voltaic pile; galvanic pile.
  8. noun a column of wood or steel or concrete that is driven into the ground to provide support for a structure
    stilt; pile; spile; piling.
  9. noun the yarn (as in a rug or velvet or corduroy) that stands up from the weave
    nap; pile.
    • for uniform color and texture tailors cut velvet with the pile running the same direction
  10. noun a nuclear reactor that uses controlled nuclear fission to generate energy
    chain reactor; atomic reactor; pile; atomic pile.
  11. verb arrange in stacks
    pile; stack; heap.
    • heap firewood around the fireplace
    • stack your books up on the shelves
  12. verb press tightly together or cram
    mob; throng; jam; pile; pack.
    • The crowd packed the auditorium
  13. verb place or lay as if in a pile
    pile.
    • The teacher piled work on the students until the parents protested

WordNet

Piles noun plural
Etymology
L. pila a ball. Cf. Pill a medicine.
Definitions
  1. (Med.) The small, troublesome tumors or swellings about the anus and lower part of the rectum which are technically called hemorrhoids. See Hemorrhoids. The singular pile is sometimes used.

Webster 1913