<p><strong>Noun:</strong></p><ul><li>an assemblage of things laid or lying one upon the other: a pile of papers; a pile of bricks.</li><li>Synonyms: batch, mound, stack, accumulation, heap, collection, mass.</li><li>Informal: a large number, quantity, or amount of anything: a pile of work.</li><li>a heap of wood on which a dead body, a living person, or a sacrifice is burned; pyre.</li><li>a lofty or large building or group of buildings: the noble pile of Windsor Castle.</li><li>Informal: a large accumulation of money: They made a pile on Wall Street.</li><li>a bundle of pieces of iron ready to be welded and drawn out into bars; fagot.</li><li>Electricity: voltaic pile.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used with object):</strong></p><ul><li>to lay or dispose in a pile (often followed by up): to pile up the fallen autumn leaves.</li><li>to accumulate or store (often followed by up): to pile up money; squirrels piling up nuts against the winter.</li><li>to cover or load with a pile: He piled the wagon with hay.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used without object):</strong></p><ul><li>to accumulate, as money, debts, evidence, etc. (usually followed by up).</li><li>Informal: to move as a group in a more or less confused, disorderly cluster: to pile off a train.</li><li>to gather, accumulate, or rise in a pile or piles (often followed by up): The snow is piling up on the roofs.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb Phrase:</strong></p><ul><li>to add or give in a plentiful or excessive manner: My mother-in-law finds a way to pile on more criticism of my life choices every time we visit.</li><li>Sports: to jump onto the pile of bodies after an opponent has been brought to the ground and the play has been ended.</li><li>to join a hostile group in harshly criticizing or judging a less dominant group or individual, sometimes gloating over that group’s or person’s defeat or diminished standing.</li></ul>