PILES

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does piles mean? 

• PILES (noun)
  The noun PILES has 2 senses:

1. venous swelling external or internal to the anal sphincter

2. a large number or amount

  Familiarity information: PILES used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PILES (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Venous swelling external or internal to the anal sphincter

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

haemorrhoid; hemorrhoid; piles

Hypernyms ("piles" is a kind of...):

symptom ((medicine) any sensation or change in bodily function that is experienced by a patient and is associated with a particular disease)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A large number or amount

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

dozens; gobs; heaps; lashings; loads; lots; oodles; piles; rafts; scads; scores; slews; stacks; tons; wads

Context example:

she amassed stacks of newspapers

Hypernyms ("piles" is a kind of...):

large indefinite amount; large indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude)

 Context examples 

Typically, when a lake dries up entirely, it leaves piles of pure salt crystals behind.

(NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds an Ancient Oasis on Mars, NASA)

Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a discovery.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as I look around me: If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On the table lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying amount.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beth was there, laying the snowy piles smoothly on the shelves and exulting over the goodly array.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Or maybe it is the other way around – that is, a single comet could be tugged into a curious shape by the strong gravitational pull of a large object like Jupiter or the Sun; after all, comets are rubble piles with weak internal strength as directly witnessed in the fragmentation of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the subsequent impacts into Jupiter, 20 years ago this week.

(Rosetta Comet May Be a Contact Binary, NASA)

Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You could have had kilometer-thick piles of moon sediment raining down on Mars in the early parts of the planet's history, and there are enigmatic sedimentary deposits on Mars with no explanation as to how they got there, said Purdue's David Minton, assistant professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences.

(Mars May Have Had Rings, and May Once Again, VOA News)

If you grabbed piles of grains and built a sand castle on Titan, it would perhaps stay together for weeks due to their electrostatic properties, said Josef Dufek, the Georgia Tech professor who co-led the study.

('Electric Sands' Cover Titan, VOA News)

Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunks and boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them into the piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, to other gods who awaited them.

(White Fang, by Jack London)