different between pile vs mess

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.

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?s/
• Rhymes: -?s

Etymology 1

Perhaps a corruption of Middle English mesh (“mash”), compare muss, or derived from Etymology 2 "mixed foods, as for animals".

Noun

mess (countable and uncountable, plural messes)

2. A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding.

   Synonyms: disorder; see also Thesaurus:disorder

3. (colloquial) A large quantity or number.

4. (euphemistic) Excrement.

5. (figuratively) A person in a state of (especially emotional) turmoil or disarray; an emotional wreck.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:mess.

Translations

Verb

mess (third-person singular simple present messes, present participle messing, simple past and past participle messed)

1. (transitive, often used with "up") To make untidy or dirty.
   1. To make soiled by defecating.
2. (transitive, often used with "up") To throw into disorder or to ruin.
   • 1905', Arthur Colton, The Belted Seas

     It wasn't right either to be messing another man's sleep.

3. (intransitive) To interfere.

4. (used with "with") To screw around with, to bother, to be annoying to.

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English mes, partly from Old English m?se, m?ose (“table”); and partly from Old French mes, Late Latin missum, from mitt? (“to put, place (e.g. on the table)”). See mission, and compare Mass (“religious service”).

Noun

mess (plural messes)

1. (obsolete) Mass; a church service.
3. (archaic) A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; also, the food given to an animal at one time.
   • c. 1555, Hugh Latimer, letter to one in prison for the profession of the Gospel

     1. a mess of pottage
4. (collective) A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common, especially military personnel who eat at the same table.
5. A building or room in which mess is eaten.
6. A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).
7. (US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.
8. (collective) A group of iguanas.

   Synonym: slaughter

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• Mess (military) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

mess (third-person singular simple present messes, present participle messing, simple past and past participle messed)

1. (intransitive) To take meals with a mess.
2. (intransitive) To belong to a mess.
3. (intransitive) To eat (with others).
   • 1836, George Simpson & al., HBC Standing Rules and Regulations, §18:

     Resolved 18. That no Guide or Interpreter whether at the Factory Depot or Inland be permitted to mess with Commissioned Gentlemen or Clerks in charge of Posts; but while at the Depot they will be allowed per Week 4 days ordinary rations...

4. (transitive) To supply with a mess.

Further reading

• Mess (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• mess in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• MSEs, MSes, Mses, Mses., SEMs, SMEs

Hungarian

Alternative forms

• messél, metssz, metsszél

Etymology

metsz +? -j (personal suffix)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?m???]
• Hyphenation: mess
• Rhymes: -???

Verb

mess

1. second-person singular subjunctive present indefinite of metsz

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (massa).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?s/

Verb

mess (imperfect jmiss, past participle mimsus)

1. to touch
2. (figuratively) to touch, to affect

Conjugation

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish mes. Cognate with Irish meas (“fruit, mast”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /me?s/

Noun

mess m (genitive singular mess, plural messyn)

1. (botany) fruit

Derived terms

• messghart

Mutation

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

mess

1. imperative of messe

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• mes

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *messus, from Proto-Indo-European *med-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [m?es]

Noun

mess m (genitive messa, nominative plural mesai)

1. verbal noun of midithir
2. judgment
   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 55^d11

Declension

Mutation

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “1 mes(s)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Swedish

Etymology

Clipping of sms.

Noun

mess n

1. (colloquial) text message

   Synonym: sms

Declension

Derived terms

• messa

References

• mess in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• mess in Svensk ordbok (SO)

Vilamovian

Noun

mess n

1. brass

Related terms

• messera