piles

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of pile.

   Workers cleared the piles of rubble after the demolition.

   He sorted the documents into neat piles across the desk.

   Note

   A regular plural, formed with -s, that carries every noun use of pile: heaps of rubble, masses formed in layers, funeral pyres, even a large building or a cluster of buildings. Posts can be piles too, as when piles are sunk into a river to hold up a bridge. The same spelling also belongs to the verb form and to the medical word, so context has to tell them apart.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialplural

   A large quantity or number of something.

   They made piles of money during the boom years.

   There are piles of paperwork waiting on my desk.

   Similarlots, loads, heaps, tons, masses

   Note

   Always plural and always followed by of: piles of money, piles of paperwork. In this construction the word stops naming a heap and simply means "a great deal", so nothing needs to be stacked. It belongs to conversation and relaxed writing, and a formal report would choose a plainer quantity word instead.

3. 3
   nounplural

   Swollen veins in and around the anus and lower rectum, often causing pain, itching, or bleeding.

   Pregnancy often brings on piles because of the added pressure on the veins.

   He finally saw a doctor about the piles that had been bleeding for weeks.

   Similarhemorrhoids

   Note

   A separate word from the heap, despite the identical spelling. It comes from Latin pila, "ball", after the rounded swellings, and Robert Herrick already uses it in Hesperides (1648). It is plural-only, so nobody has "a pile" in this sense. Hemorrhoids is the clinical name for the same condition, and piles is the plainer word.

4. 4
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of pile.

   The wind piles snow against the fence each winter.

   He piles pressure on his team before every match.

   Note

   The -s form that goes with he, she, it or a singular noun. Most uses take an object, as in "the wind piles snow" or "she piles a plate high". It can also stand alone when the heap forms by itself: snow piles against the fence. The spelling is shared with the plural noun, so the shape of the sentence shows which one you have.

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