different between stuff vs pile

English

Etymology

From Middle English stuffen (“to equip, furnish”), from Old French estoffer ("to provide what is necessary, equip, stuff"; > French étoffer and étouffer), from Frankish *stopf?n, *stopp?n (“to cram, plug, stuff”), from Proto-Germanic *stupp?n? (“to clog up, block, fill”). Cognate with Old High German stoff?n, stopf?n (“to plug, stuff”), Old English stoppian (“to stop up, close”) and Albanian shtyp (“to press, squeeze, stuff”). Compare Dutch stof, and German Stoff. More at stop.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Noun

stuff (usually uncountable, plural stuffs)

1. (informal) Miscellaneous items or objects; (with possessive) personal effects.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

   1. (obsolete, uncountable) Furniture; goods; domestic vessels or utensils.
      • 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI,

        He took away locks, and gave away the king's stuff.

2. (informal) Unspecified things or matters.

3. The tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object — as for example breadstuff into bread, or (more figuratively) the right stuff into an astronaut.

   Synonyms: matter, ingredients, constituents; see also Thesaurus:substance

   • 1697, John Davies, A Poem on the Immortality of the Soul

     The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, / And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill.
   1. (archaic) A material for making clothing; any woven textile, but especially a woollen fabric.
      • 1857, The National Magazine (volumes 10-11, page 350)

        "And you can buy a dress for your wife off this piece of stuff," said Lisetta, who had always an eye to business.

      • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p.147:

        She was going out to buy some lengths of good woollen stuff for Louise's winter dresses.

   2. (archaic) Boards used for building.
   3. Abstract/figurative substance or character.
      • c.1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2, 91–94:

        When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

      • c.1610, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1, 156–157:

        We are such stuff / As dreams are made on

   4. Paper stock ground ready for use. When partly ground, it is called half stuff.

      (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

4. (informal) Used as placeholder, usually for material of unknown type or name.

   Synonyms: doodad, thingamabob; see also Thesaurus:thingy
5. (slang) Narcotic drugs, especially heroin.

   Synonyms: dope, gear; see also Thesaurus:recreational drug

   • 1947, William Burroughs, letter, 11 March:

     For some idiotic reason the bureaucrats are more opposed to tea than to stuff.

   • 1975, Mary Sanches, Ben G. Blount, Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use (page 47)

     For example, one addict would crack shorts (break and enter cars) and usually obtain just enough stolen goods to buy stuff and get off just before getting sick.

6. (obsolete) A medicine or mixture; a potion.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

7. (obsolete) Refuse or worthless matter; hence, also, foolish or irrational language; nonsense; trash.

   Synonyms: garbage, rubbish; see also Thesaurus:trash

   • Anger would indite / Such woeful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
8. (nautical) A melted mass of turpentine, tallow, etc., with which the masts, sides, and bottom of a ship are smeared for lubrication.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

9. (slang, criminal argot, dated) Money.

Usage notes

• The textile sense is increasingly specialized and sounds dated in everyday contexts. In the UK & Commonwealth it designates the cloth from which legal and academic gowns are made, except for the gowns of Queen's/King's/State Counsel, which are (often in contradistinction) made of silk.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

stuff (third-person singular simple present stuffs, present participle stuffing, simple past and past participle stuffed)

1. (transitive) To fill by packing or crowding something into; to cram with something; to load to excess.

   I'm going to stuff this pillow with feathers.

   • Lest the gods, for sin, / Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin.

2. (transitive) To fill a space with (something) in a compressed manner.
   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.
3. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this redundant sense?) (transitive, cooking) To fill with seasoning.

4. (transitive) To load goods into (a container) for transport.
5. (transitive, used in the passive) To sate.

6. (takes a reflexive pronoun) To eat, especially in a hearty or greedy manner.

   Synonyms: fill one's face, feed one's face, stuff one's face

   She sits on the sofa all day, watching TV and stuffing herself with cream buns.

7. (transitive, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) To break; to destroy.

8. (transitive, vulgar, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) To sexually penetrate.

   Synonyms: fuck, root, screw

   His wife came home early and found him on the couch stuffing the maid.

9. (transitive, mildly vulgar, often imperative) Used to contemptuously dismiss or reject something. See also stuff it.
10. (informal) To heavily defeat or get the better of.

    Mudchester Rovers were stuffed 7-0 in the semi-final.

    They totally stuffed us in that business deal.

11. (transitive) To cut off another competitor in a race by disturbing his projected and committed racing line (trajectory) by an abrupt manoeuvre.

12. To preserve a dead bird or other animal by filling its skin.
13. (transitive) To obstruct, as any of the organs; to affect with some obstruction in the organs of sense or respiration.
14. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this redundant sense?) (transitive) To form or fashion by packing with the necessary material.
    • 1724, Jonathan Swift, Drapier's Letters, 5

      An Eastern king put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence, and ordered his hide to be stuffed into a cushion, and placed upon the tribunal.

15. (transitive, dated) To crowd with facts; to cram the mind of; sometimes, to crowd or fill with false or idle tales or fancies.
16. (transitive, computing) To compress (a file or files) in the StuffIt format, to be unstuffed later.

Derived terms

Translations

References

• stuff at OneLook Dictionary Search
• stuff in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Tuffs, tuffs

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.