different between heap vs neap

English

Etymology

From Middle English heep, from Old English h?ap, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (compare Dutch hoop, German Low German Hupen, German Haufen), from Proto-Indo-European *koupos (“hill”) (compare Lithuanian ka?pas, Albanian qipi (“stack”), Avestan ????????????????? (kåfa)).

Pronunciation

• enPR: h?p, IPA^(key): /hi?p/
• ((Ireland), dated) enPR: h?p, IPA^(key): /he?p/
• Rhymes: -i?p

Noun

heap (plural heaps)

1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement touching an Holy War

     a heap of vassals and slaves

   • 1876, Anthony Trollope, s:Doctor Thorne

     He had plenty of friends, heaps of friends in the parliamentary sense

2. A pile or mass; a collection of things laid in a body, or thrown together so as to form an elevation.

   • Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.
3. A great number or large quantity of things.
   • 1679, Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England

     a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations

   • 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, s:Will o' the Mill

     I have noticed a heap of things in my life.

4. (computing) A data structure consisting of trees in which each node is greater than all its children.
5. (computing) Memory that is dynamically allocated.

6. (colloquial) A dilapidated place or vehicle.
   • 1991 May 12, "Kidnapped!" Jeeves and Wooster, Series 2, Episode 5:

     Chuffy: It's on a knife edge at the moment, Bertie. If he can get planning permission, old Stoker's going to take this heap off my hands in return for vast amounts of oof.

7. (colloquial) A lot, a large amount

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:lot

Hyponyms

• compost heap

Derived terms

• heapful
• heapmeal
• it takes a heap of living to make a house a home

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: ipi

Translations

Verb

heap (third-person singular simple present heaps, present participle heaping, simple past and past participle heaped)

1. (transitive) To pile in a heap.

2. (transitive) To form or round into a heap, as in measuring.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act I, scene II, verses 40-42

     Cry a reward, to him who shall first bring
     News of that vanished Arabian,
     A full-heap’d helmet of the purest gold.

3. (transitive) To supply in great quantity.

Synonyms

• (pile in a heap): amass, heap up, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up

Derived terms

• heap coals of fire on someone's head
• heaped (adj), heaping (adj)
• heap up
• overheap

Translations

Adverb

heap (not comparable)

1. (offensive, representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans) Very.
   • 1980, Joey Lee Dillard, Perspectives on American English (page 417)

     We are all familiar with the stereotyped broken English which writers of Western stories, comic strips, and similar literature put into the mouths of Indians: 'me heap big chief', 'you like um fire water', and so forth.

   • 2004, John Robert Colombo, The Penguin Book of Canadian Jokes (page 175)

     Once upon a time, a Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are captured by the Red Indians […] He approaches the Englishman, pinches the skin of his upper arm, and says, "Hmmm, heap good skin, nice and thick.

Anagrams

• HAPE, HEPA, epha, hep A

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz.

Cognate with Old Frisian h?p, Old Saxon h?p, Old High German houf. Old Norse hópr differs from the expected form *haupr because it is a borrowing from Middle Low German.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xæ???p/, [hæ???p]

Noun

h?ap m

1. group
   • late 10th century, Ælfric, "The Nativity of St. Paul the Apostle"

2. heap

Declension

Derived terms

• h?apm?lum

Descendants

• Middle English: heep
  • English: heap

Portuguese

Etymology

From English heap

Noun

heap m or f (in variation) (plural heaps)

1. (computing) heap (tree-based data structure)

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian h?p, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (“heap”).

Noun

heap c (plural heapen or heappen, diminutive heapke)

1. heap, pile
2. mass, gang, horde

Further reading

• “heap”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: n?p, IPA^(key): /ni?p/
• Rhymes: -i?p

Etymology 1

Perhaps of Scandinavian origin: compare dialectal Norwegian neip (“forked pole”).

Noun

neap (plural neaps)

1. The tongue or pole of a cart or other vehicle drawn by two animals.

Etymology 2

From Middle English neep, from Old English n?p (“scant, lacking”), possibly from Proto-Germanic *n?piz (“narrow”). Found especially in Old English n?pfl?d (“neap tide”, literally “low tide”). Compare Norwegian dialectal nøpen (“scarce, scant, barely enough”).

Adjective

neap (not comparable)

1. (of a tide) Low; lowest; the ebb or lowest point of a tide.
2. Designating a tide which occurs just after the first and third quarters of the moon, when there is the least difference between high tide and low tide.

Translations

Verb

neap (third-person singular simple present neaps, present participle neaping, simple past and past participle neaped)

1. To trap a ship (or ship and crew) in water too shallow to move, due to the smaller tidal range occurring in a period of neap tides.
2. to ooze, to sink, to subside, to tail
   

Noun

neap (plural neaps)

1. A neap tide.

Etymology 3

Noun

neap (plural neaps)

1. Alternative form of neep

References

Anagrams

• -pnea, NAPE, Pena, nape, pane, pané, pean