different between parcel vs heap

English

Etymology

From Middle English parcel, from Old French parcelle (“a small piece or part, a parcel, a particle”), from Vulgar Latin *particella, diminutive of Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Doublet of particle.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pär?-s?l, IPA^(key): /?p??s?l/
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): [?p?a?.s??]
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [?p???.s??]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): [?p???.s??]
• Rhymes: -??(r)s?l
• Hyphenation: par?cel

Noun

parcel (plural parcels)

1. A package wrapped for shipment.

   Synonym: package

   • At twilight in the summer […] the mice come out. They […] eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly […] on the floor.
2. An individual consignment of cargo for shipment, regardless of size and form.
3. A division of land bought and sold as a unit.

   Synonym: plot

4. (obsolete) A group of birds.
5. An indiscriminate or indefinite number, measure, or quantity; a collection; a group.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3,^[2]

     […] this youthful parcel

     Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

   • 1847, Herman Melville, Omoo, Part 2, Chapter 79,^[3]

     […] instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age […]

6. A small amount of food that has been wrapped up, for example a pastry.
7. A portion of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part.
   • 1731, John Arbuthnot, An essay concerning the nature of aliments, London: J. Tonson, Chapter 4, p. 85,^[4]

     The same Experiments succeed on two Parcels of the White of an Egg […]

   • 1881, John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, Volume 5, Part I, New York: Henry Holt, Chapter 1, p. 2,^[5]

     The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• lot
• allotment

Verb

parcel (third-person singular simple present parcels, present participle parceling or parcelling, simple past and past participle parceled or parcelled)

1. To wrap something up into the form of a package.
2. To wrap a strip around the end of a rope.

   Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

3. To divide and distribute by parts or portions; often with out or into.
   • 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act II, Scene 2,^[6]

     Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.

   • 1667, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, London: H. Herringman, Act I, Scene 2, p. 12,^[7]

     Those ghostly Kings would parcel out my pow’r,

     And all the fatness of my Land devour;

   • 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, pp. 94-95,^[8]

     Then the great Hall was wholly broken down,

     And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms;

4. To add a parcel or item to; to itemize.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2,^[9]

     […] that mine own servant should

     Parcel the sum of my disgraces by

     Addition of his envy!

Translations

Adverb

parcel (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Part or half; in part; partially.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1,^[10]

     Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet […]

   • 1826, Walter Scott, Woodstock, or The Cavalier, Chapter 4,^[11]

     […] as the worthy dame was parcel blind and more than parcel deaf, knowledge was excluded by two principal entrances […]

   • 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, p. 59,^[12]

     here was one [a hut] that, summer-blanch’d,

     Was parcel-bearded with the traveller’s-joy

     In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad;

Further reading

• parcel in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• parcel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Placer, carpel, craple, placer

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from French parcelle (“parcel”), from Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of pars (“part”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [p???s?l?]

Noun

parcel c (singular definite parcellen, plural indefinite parceller)

1. parcel, lot (subdivided piece of land registred independently in official records)
2. (informal) detached house

   Synonym: parcelhus

Inflection

Portuguese

Noun

parcel m (plural parcéis)

1. a shoal, a sandbank

   Synonyms: vau, vado, baixo, baixio, esparcel, restinga, sirte

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