1. Venous swelling external or internal to the anal sphincter
   "He sought medical treatment for painful piles";
   - hemorrhoid [N. Amer], haemorrhoid [Brit, Cdn]
    
2. [informal] A large number or amount
   "made piles of new friends";
   - tons [informal], dozens, heaps [informal], lots, scores, stacks [informal], loads [informal], rafts [informal], slews, wads [informal], oodles [informal], gobs [N. Amer, informal], scads [N. Amer, informal], lashings [Brit, informal], many, masses [Brit, informal]

1. A collection of objects laid on top of each other
   "The pile of rocks at the base of the cliff grew over time";
   - heap, mound, agglomerate, cumulation, cumulus
    
2. [informal] (often followed by ‘of’) a large number, amount or extent
   "a pile of letters";
   - batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle [archaic], mountain, muckle, passel [US], peck, plenty, pot, quite a little, raft, sight, slew, spate, stack [informal], tidy sum, wad, bunch [informal], scad [N. Amer, informal]
    
3. [informal] A large sum of money (especially as pay or profit)
   "she made a pile selling real estate";
   - bundle [informal], big bucks [informal], megabucks [informal], big money [informal], bomb [Brit, informal], mint [informal]
    
4. A column of wood, steel or concrete that is driven into the ground to provide support for a structure
   "The bridge was supported by massive concrete piles";
   - spile, piling, stilt
    
5. The yarn (as in a rug, velvet or corduroy) that stands up from the weave
   "for uniform colour and texture, tailors cut velvet with the pile running the same direction";
   - nap
    
6. Fine soft dense hair (as the fine short hair of cattle or deer or the wool of sheep or the undercoat of certain dogs)
   "The dog's thick pile provided insulation against the cold";
   - down
    
7. Battery consisting of voltaic cells arranged in series; the earliest electric battery devised by Volta
   "Volta's invention of the voltaic pile marked a significant advancement in the study of electricity";
   - voltaic pile, galvanic pile
    
8. A nuclear reactor that uses controlled nuclear fission to generate energy
   "The country's first atomic pile was built in the 1950s";
   - atomic pile [archaic], atomic reactor, chain reactor

1. Arrange in stacks
   "pile your books up on the shelves";
   - stack, heap
    
2. Place or lay as if in a pile
   "The teacher piled work on the students until the parents protested"
    
3. Press tightly together or cram
   "The students piled into the small elevator";
   - throng, mob, pack, jam

See also: heap up

Type of: accumulation, aggregation, arrange, assemblage, battery, collection, column, crowd, crowd together, electric battery, hair, large indefinite amount, large indefinite quantity, lay, money, nuclear reactor, pillar, place, pose, position, put, reactor, set, set up, symptom, thread, yarn

Encyclopedia: Piles, Valencia