different between brace vs pile

English

Etymology

From Middle English brace, from Old French brace (“arm”), from Latin bracchia, the nominative and accusative plural of bracchium (“arm”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?e?s/
• Rhymes: -e?s

Noun

brace (plural braces)

1. (obsolete) Armor for the arm; vambrace.
2. (obsolete) A measurement of length, originally representing a person's outstretched arms.
3. A curved instrument or handle of iron or wood, for holding and turning bits, etc.; a bitstock.
4. That which holds anything tightly or supports it firmly; a bandage or a prop.
5. A cord, ligament, or rod, for producing or maintaining tension.
6. A thong used to regulate the tension of a drum.
   • 1713, William Derham, Physico-Theology

     The little bones of the ear drum do in straining and relaxing it as the braces of the war drum do in that.

7. The state of being braced or tight; tension.
   • 1669, William Holder, Elements of Speech

     the laxness of the tympanum, when it has lost its brace or tension

8. Harness; warlike preparation.
9. (typography) A curved, pointed line, also known as "curly bracket": { or } connecting two or more words or lines, which are to be considered together, such as in {role, roll}; in music, used to connect staves.
10. A pair, a couple; originally used of dogs, and later of animals generally (e.g., a brace of conies) and then other things, but rarely human persons. (The plural in this sense is unchanged.) In British use (as plural), this is a particularly common reference to game birds.
    • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 5 scene 1

      But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,

      I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you,

      And justify you traitors

    • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church History of Britain

      A brace of brethren, both bishops, both eminent for learning and religion, now appeared in the church

    • 1859, George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Chapter 5:

      "Are you a prime shot?'" said Richard.

      Ripton nodded knowingly, and answered, "Pretty good."

      "Then ww'll have a dozen brase apiece today," said Richard.
11. A piece of material used to transmit, or change the direction of, weight or pressure; any one of the pieces, in a frame or truss, which divide the structure into triangular parts. It may act as a tie, or as a strut, and serves to prevent distortion of the structure, and transverse strains in its members. A boiler brace is a diagonal stay, connecting the head with the shell.
12. (nautical) A rope reeved through a block at the end of a yard, by which the yard is moved horizontally; also, a rudder gudgeon.
13. (Britain, Cornwall, mining) The mouth of a shaft.
14. (Britain, chiefly in the plural) Straps or bands to sustain trousers; suspenders.
15. (plural in North America, singular or plural in the UK) A system of wires, brackets, and elastic bands used to correct crooked teeth or to reduce overbite.
16. (soccer) Two goals scored by one player in a game.

Synonyms

• (measure of length representing a person's outstretched arms): fathom
• (pair, couple): dyad, twosome; see also Thesaurus:duo

Derived terms

• curly brace

Translations

Verb

brace (third-person singular simple present braces, present participle bracing, simple past and past participle braced)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To prepare for something bad, such as an impact or blow.

   All hands, brace for impact!

   Brace yourself!

   The boy has no idea about everything that's been going on. You need to brace him for what's about to happen.
2. To place in a position for resisting pressure; to hold firmly.

   He braced himself against the crowd.
3. (nautical) To swing round the yards of a square rigged ship, using braces, to present a more efficient sail surface to the direction of the wind.

   to brace the yards

4. To stop someone for questioning, usually said of police.
5. To confront with questions, demands or requests.
   • 1980, Stephen King, The Wedding Gig

     Just about then the young kid who had braced us when we came in uttered a curse and made for the door.

6. To furnish with braces; to support; to prop.

   to brace a beam in a building

7. To draw tight; to tighten; to put in a state of tension; to strain; to strengthen.

   to brace the nerves

   • 1825, Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground

     And welcome war to brace her drums.

8. To bind or tie closely; to fasten tightly.

   • The women of China […] , by bracing and binding them [their feet] from their infancy, have very little feet.

   • 1815, Walter Scott, Lord of the Isles

     some who spurs had first braced on

Synonyms

• (strengthen): See also Thesaurus:strengthen

Translations

Related terms

• brace aback
• brace about
• brace abox
• brace by
• brace in
• brace oneself
• brace sharp
• brace of shakes

Anagrams

• acerb, caber, cabre, cabré

Italian

Alternative forms

• brage, bragia, bracia (archaic or regional)

Etymology

Perhaps from Gothic *???????????????????? (*brasa, “glowing coal”), from Proto-Germanic *bras? (“gleed, crackling coal”), Proto-Indo-European *b?res- (“to crack, break, burst”). Cognate with French braise (“embers”), Swedish brasa (“to roast”), Icelandic brasa (“to harden by fire”).Most probably cognate to Sanskrit ???? (bhrája, “fire”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bra.t??e/
• Hyphenation: brà?ce

Noun

brace f (plural braci)

1. (chiefly in the plural) embers

Derived terms

• braciaio
• braciaiola
• braciere
• bracino
• braciola

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old French brace, from Latin bracchia, plural of bracchium.

Alternative forms

• brase, braas, bras

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bra?s(?)/

Noun

brace (uncountable)

1. Vambrace; armour which protects the arm.
2. A cord or brace for fastening or attaching things to something.
3. A group or set of two dogs or canines.
4. Wood used as a buttress or support for building.
5. (rare) A support or buttress used in other applications.
6. (rare) A kind of riding equipment or horse tack.
7. (rare) A peninsula; a cape or slice of land jutting into the sea.
8. (rare) A perch (unit of measure)
9. (rare) A point of a cross or rood.

Derived terms

• bracen
• bracer
• brasyng
• rerebrace
• vambrace

Descendants

• English: brace
• Scots: brace

References

• “br?ce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-11.

Etymology 2

Verb

brace

1. Alternative form of bracen

Old French

Etymology

From Latin brachia, bracchia, originally the plural of bracchium.

Noun

brace f (oblique plural braces, nominative singular brace, nominative plural braces)

1. arm (limb)

Related terms

• bras

Descendants

• ? Middle English: brace, brase, braas, bras
  • English: brace
  • Scots: brace

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (brace)

Romanian

Alternative forms

• braci

Etymology

From Latin br?cae, plural of br?ca.

Noun

brace f pl (plural only)

1. (rare, Bukovina) underwear, undergarments, drawers, unmentionables

Declension

Synonyms

• indispensabili, chilo?i, izmene

Related terms

• îmbr?ca

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa?l/
• Rhymes: -a?l

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Middle French pile, pille, from Latin p?la (“pillar, pier”).

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
2. (figuratively, informal) A group or list of related items up for consideration, especially in some kind of selection process.

3. A mass formed in layers.

4. A funeral pile; a pyre.
5. (slang) A large amount of money.

   Synonyms: bundle, (both informal) mint, (colloquial) small fortune

6. A large building, or mass of buildings.
   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, II.2:

     The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture […]

   • 1697, John Dryden, The Aeneid

     The pile o'erlooked the town and drew the fight.

   • 1892, Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved

     It was dark when the four-wheeled cab wherein he had brought Avice from the station stood at the entrance to the pile of flats of which Pierston occupied one floor […]

7. A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; a fagot.
8. A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals (especially copper and zinc), laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; a voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.
9. (architecture, civil engineering) A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground.

   Hyponyms: friction pile, bearing pile, end bearing pile

   Coordinate terms: pile driver, pile foundation

10. An atomic pile; an early form of nuclear reactor.
11. (obsolete) The reverse (or tails) of a coin.
12. (figuratively) A list or league

    • Watch Harlequins train and you get some idea of why they are back on top of the pile going into Saturday's rerun of last season's grand final against Leicester.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lot

Translations

Verb

pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)

1. (transitive, often used with the preposition "up") To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate

2. (transitive) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.

3. (transitive) To add something to a great number.
4. (transitive) (of vehicles) To create a hold-up.
5. (transitive, military) To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other.

Synonyms

• (lay or throw into a pile): heap, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up

Translations

Related terms

Etymology 2

From Old English p?l, from Latin p?lum (“heavy javelin”). Cognate with Dutch pijl, German Pfeil. Doublet of pilum.

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. (obsolete) A dart; an arrow.
2. The head of an arrow or spear.
3. A large stake, or piece of pointed timber, steel etc., driven into the earth or sea-bed for the support of a building, a pier, or other superstructure, or to form a cofferdam, etc.
4. (heraldry) One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)

1. (transitive) To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.

Translations

Etymology 3

Apparently from Late Latin pilus.

Noun

pile (plural piles)

1. (usually in the plural) A hemorrhoid.

Translations

Etymology 4

From Middle English pile, partly from Anglo-Norman pil (a variant of peil, poil (“hair”)) and partly from its source, Latin pilus (“hair”). Doublet of pilus.

Noun

pile (countable and uncountable, plural piles)

1. Hair, especially when very fine or short; the fine underfur of certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.)
2. The raised hairs, loops or strands of a fabric; the nap of a cloth.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task

     Velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile.

Translations

Verb

pile (third-person singular simple present piles, present participle piling, simple past and past participle piled)

1. (transitive) To give a pile to; to make shaggy.

Anagrams

• Lipe, Peil, Piel, plie, plié

Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pi?l?/, [?p?i?l?]

Noun

pile c

1. indefinite plural of pil

French

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin p?la (through Italian pila for the “battery” sense). The “tail of a coin” sense is probably derived from previous senses, but it's not known for sure.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pil/

Noun

pile f (plural piles)

1. heap, stack

2. pillar
3. battery

4. tails

5. (heraldry) pile

Derived terms

• pile ou face

Descendants

• ? Haitian Creole: anpil
• ? Khmer: ??? (p?l)
• ? Malagasy: pila
• ? Rade: pil
• ? Turkish: pil
• ? Vietnamese: pin

Adverb

pile

1. (colloquial) just, exactly
2. (colloquial) dead (of stopping etc.); on the dot, sharp (of time), smack

Derived terms

• pile-poil

Further reading

• “pile” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• plie, plié

Friulian

Etymology 1

From Latin p?la (“mortar”).

Noun

pile f (plural pilis)

1. basin
2. mortar (vessel used to grind things)

Synonyms

• (basin): vâs
• (mortar): mortâr

Etymology 2

From Latin p?la (“pillar”).

Noun

pile f (plural pilis)

1. pile (architecture)

Italian

Noun

pile m (invariable)

1. fleece (all senses)

Noun

pile f

1. plural of pila

Anagrams

• peli

Latin

Noun

pile

1. vocative singular of pilus

Latvian

Noun

pile f (5th declension)

1. drip

2. dribble (a small amount of a liquid)
3. drop

Declension

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?il?/, [?p?il?]

Noun

pile

1. inflection of pi?a:
   1. dative/locative singular
   2. nominative/accusative dual

Middle English

Noun

pile

1. Alternative form of pilwe

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?i.l?/

Noun

pile f

1. dative/locative singular of pi?a

Portuguese

Verb

pile

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of pilar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of pilar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of pilar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of pilar

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *pil? (“chick”); but also a *piskl? is reconstructed related to *piskati (“to utter shrilly”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pîle/
• Hyphenation: pi?le

Noun

p?le n (Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. chick

Declension

See also

• kokoš
• pijevac / pevac
• pile?i gulaš

Verb

pile (Cyrillic spelling ????)

1. third-person plural present of piliti

Spanish

Verb

pile

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of pilar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of pilar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of pilar.