1A heap of things laid or lying one on top of another.

他把书整整齐齐地叠放在一起。

1. 1.1informal A large amount of something.
   〈非正式〉一大堆；大量
   the growing pile of work

   不断增加的工作。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • It reminded me that the beard was only a pile of hairs on my face that would grow again if I really wanted it to do so.
   • Are these questions to ask ourselves as the years pass, as the hostility grows, as the piles of dead mount on both sides?
   • After expenses, the company said it will use the IPO proceeds to pay down part of its debt pile, which is now close to €2.2 billion.
   • Like the biting winds of nature that sculpt rock and carve stone, inflation and taxes will grind the greatest piles of fortune to dust over time.
   • As the pile of cash grows, the interest gets calculated on the bigger amount and the return jumps higher.
   • A debt pile approaching €300 million has been systematically reduced.
   • Audiences around the world still get to their feet every night and the money pile continues to grow.
   • Inevitably the film made enormous amounts of money and won a pile of Academy Awards.
   • Three, including Sir Richard, increased their pile by £1 billion or more.
   • This film did of course gross an enormous amount of money worldwide and in America, and also received a pile of Oscar nominations.
   • This isn't to say the company will disappear in a puff of smoke: with a cash pile of $51 billion, it isn't going to go away anytime soon.
   • Eventually, as the pile grows like Jack's beanstalk, the pressure on the publicists grows.
   • Experts are at hand to advise you on how to put aside a little every month and invest it prudently, so that the little pile slowly grows into an appreciable amount within a few years.
   • Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovich tops the pile with an estimated fortune of more than £10 bn.
   • The company's balance sheet shows that its cash pile fell from €6.5 million to €669,213.
   • The money just slips out, the deficit piles higher - and his response to every problem seems to be spending more.
   • The Americans as usual will fancy their horses to beat all-comers, but O'Brien's three can win a fair pile of the millions of dollars up for grabs at Chicago.
   • If you're poor in this world, this is how you get your daily energy: a big pile of carbohydrates with a tiny amount of proteins, fats, spice or salt to leaven the stodge.
   • Eventually, as deficit piles on deficit, the accumulated debt starts to grow more rapidly than the economy.
   • No, it was too much for a dog, a dog who, by all accounts, at the end amounted to nothing more than a useless pile of bones in a wrinkled sack of skin.

   Synonyms

   great deal, lot, great amount, large amount, large quantity, abundance, superabundance, cornucopia, plethora, wealth, profusion, mountain
2. 1.2informal A lot of money.
   〈非正式〉赚大钱，发财
   he is admired for having made a pile for himself

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Does it make sense to spend such a large pile of public money to get a smidgen more gallery space?
   • There is no such person as Bradford Council, this is just a name we give to the big pile of money created by payment of all our council tax and rates bills.
   • Unregulated, unwatched pile of money patronage-based political machines always need to keep running.
   • But somehow he created a cult as well as an obscene pile of money.
   • That conceit is as stale as our pile of oil money is high.
   • I hope my agent is ready to sell the thing to some publisher with a pile of money burning a hole in their pocket.
   • If nothing else we promoted the idea, tested the technology and, incidentally, raised a pile of money for tsunami relief.
   • He leaves her a pile of money and an unpublished novel, with instructions to send it to various London publishers.
   • Some things are too big to hide, like really enormous piles of money.
   • Meanwhile, across town, Bridget Gregory hangs up the phone and begins counting a huge pile of money.
   • The plates were piled up, and the sink began to fill up.
   • If the government is to invest it must do so now and it seems they are reluctant to spend a pile of money on the airline.
   • I would become an old spinster with piles of money from my lucrative business.
   • When a person feels more comfortable wearing the same shirt every day, what does he need a pile of money for?
   • If you want to give away obscene piles of money for social issues, feel free to do so.
   • The expressions of weakness with respect to the organization he took a pile of money to run are reckless.
   • Is he giving any of that pile of money he made back to them?
   • It was so much fun we put it on video and made a whole pile of money by selling it to the TV station so they could put it on air!
   • She was Federal Minister for Environment, Sport and Territories, and had a pile of grant money to distribute.
   • Leiko quickly calculated exactly how high that pile of money would be.
   • However, there is a formidable list of talent in front of him before he makes the first team and the inevitable pile of money.
3. 1.3 A large imposing building or group of buildings.
   高大建筑；大厦；建筑群
   a Victorian Gothic pile

   一座维多利亚时代的哥特式雄伟建筑。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Space, quality and style are in abundance, but these piles are most definitely priced accordingly - from 820000.
   • The excitement peaked after the sale when the multitudes began speculating about which moneybags celebrity or rich-list regular had bought the landmark pile.
   • The McKittrick Hotel is a gothic pile, quite similar in appearance to the Bates home.
   • Walter Scott, in one of his rare moments of happy economy, summed up the city skyline as mixed and massive piles - half church of God, half castle against the Scot.
   • The house itself is a pile built when Pitlochry was the chicest spa venue in early Victorian Britain.
   • In a nutshell, Lord Edgar Hillcrest has brought his new bride - Lady Enid - home to the ancestral pile, Mandercrest.
   • A huge outcry followed Lord Minto's decision to raze his ancestral pile to the ground in 1992.

   Synonyms

   mansion, stately home, hall, manor, big house, manor house, country house, castle, palace
4. 1.4 A series of plates of dissimilar metals laid one on another alternately to produce an electric current.
   电池组
5. 1.5dated A nuclear reactor.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • In the basement of the unused football stadium of the University of Chicago, scientists Enrico Fermi and Arthur Compton built an atomic pile and in December 1942 produced the first chain reaction in uranium.
   • Bent on defeating Nazi Germany, Wigner worked on plutonium production and made superb engineering designs for the air-cooled atomic pile built by the DuPont Corporation.
   • Another display that caught my attention was the diorama showing Enrique Fermi and George While controlling the reaction at the world's first atomic pile CP - 1.
   • Most of his biographers and all of his friends say that he was simply a German, and when his country was at war he was duty-bound to build them an atomic pile.
6. 1.6archaic A funeral pyre.
   〈古〉火葬用的柴堆
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The following morning Priam bade his people go gather wood for the burial, and after nine days the body of Hector was laid on the pile and burned.
   • Then the corpse is brought and laid in the midst; the pile is kindled and the roaring flame rises, mingled with weeping, till all is consumed.

1with object and adverbial Place (things) one on top of another.

她把食品杂货都堆放在柜台上。

1. 1.1be piled with Be stacked or loaded with.
   堆满；装满
   his in-box was piled high with papers

   他的收文架里高高地堆满了文件。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • She wore a cloak about her shoulders that was piled with what looked like swan feathers.
   • The food bank shelves were piled with enough items to last eight weeks, said Jennifer Hayward, the food bank's treasurer.
   • He apparently hadn't cleaned out his car, so it was piled with random junk.
   • Many of the works were created in the top-floor studio, which was piled with half-finished canvases.
   • The streets were piled with rubbish and animal feces.
   • Yang's third-floor apartment is piled with his former works.
   • The sink and counters were piled with things to be addressed in one way or another.
   • The plate, sitting unnoticed in front of her, was piled with pancakes and sausage.
   • Tables were piled with textbooks for homeschoolers, tomes denouncing evolution, booklets waxing nostalgic for the antebellum South.
   • The room seemed very well kept and there was an antique desk in the corner that was piled with papers and documents.
   • He also saw that the bed was piled with any piece of cloth that occupied the room.
   • The bed he was laying on was tiny, but comfortable, and the rest of the room was piled with assorted broken cooking utensils and children's toys.
   • Your phone has been ringing off the hook and your desk is piled with work demanding your attention.
   • A rubbish recycling station was located on the ground floor of the apartment block and the only passage into the building was piled with rubbish.
   • I snickered and shoved my book bag into a corner that was piled with papers.
   • The older man said as he made his way towards an old wooden desk that was piled with papers.
   • The solid kauri counter, twenty feet in length, was piled with goods on both sides of the cash register and around the scales.
   • Everyone was sitting round the Christmas tree, which was piled with presents.
   • Those cars successfully detecting all the eight points were piled with extra gifts.
   • Cobwebs coated the shelves, which were piled with scrolls, leaves, and stone slabs.

   Synonyms

   load, heap, fill, fill up, lade, pack, stack, charge, stuff, cram
2. 1.2pile upno object Increase in quantity.
   the work has piled up

   工作有点儿积压了。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The dress went to the floor, and came with tiny pearl circlets to be worn when their hair was piled up on their heads.
   • Rubbish and shopping bags full of human faeces were piled up in the garden along with stolen handbags and credit cards.
   • I left my sandals at the entrance, where thousands of other pairs were piled up, and went barefoot through the Abdul Aziz Gate, my gaze firmly fixed on the marble floor.
   • Its boats were piled up everywhere like toys, many in the surrounding woods and mangrove swamps and a few in residential front yards.
   • The magazines and books are piled up on the end table, collecting dust.
   • In a shabby room near the shop, sacks of blood clams were piled up.
   • Miss Virdi said rubbish bags had been piled up against the back door and set alight.
   • They would explain the details of the program, while the women sat in a circle and the money was piled up in front of them on the floor.
   • She is wearing lots of make-up, and her hair is piled up on top of her head like a Greek goddess.
   • Their ashes are piled up on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka, and are strewn in the forests of Poland.
   • The tender-crisp green beans were piled up like a little bean bonfire.
   • As their creations are piled up for storage, I make sure an 18’ x 24’ sheet of newsprint is placed between each work to avoid rubbing or smudging.
   • The man shrugged and walked to where Laoise and Maeve's bags were piled up under a tree and hoisted them onto his shoulders.
   • Debris suggests that timbers were piled up to the north-west of the circle, and manoeuvred into place after they had been split in half.
   • A dozen cardboard boxes were piled up in a hallway outside the Angels' spring training clubhouse in Tempe, Ariz.
   • About a dozen wooden pallets had been piled up behind the shop's back entrance and set alight at about 9.15 pm.
   • Shoes and tattered clothes were piled up in a corner.
   • The pillows were piled up against wrought iron headboard and she leaned back against them.
   • The torch was lit as grasses were piled up around us.
   • Some cars were piled up, fires were raging, and buildings were already destroyed from having their windows smashed.
3. 1.3pile something up Cause to increase in quantity.
   the debts he piled up

   他高筑的债台。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Helpfully Manfred hurried to his side to assist him in getting the blankets out and piling them up in a heap.
   • Are you not aware that it is God who causes the clouds to move onward, then joins them together, then piles them up in masses, until you can see rain come forth from their midst.
   • All the books in the apartment had been piled up and set on fire, she said.
   • He piles it up with tomatoes, Italian Parmesan and mozzarella on focaccia (which he bakes fresh every day) and grills until it's golden.
   • Sometimes I used to pile stones up and collect them at night with my wheelbarrow for I was working a lot at night.
   • Dead pines washed away by the spring floods were piled up and wedged into grotesque shapes like a petrified forest.
   • The parents said that the broken glass had been piled up by Wu, along with other waste, when he was decorating his house.
   • So my challenge to myself is to look at these sculptures and see what (if anything) they have to say, without piling my own stuff up around them.
   • The people are going through stores on that street with grocery carts, just piling them up, going into athletic stores, and all other kinds of stores, and a little bit outside the city.
   • A lot of people just take horse poo out of the stables from the bedding and pile it up as manure heaps.
   • The papers were piled up too high for him to see it at that angle.
   • Without using any cement, the bridge is piled up by stones.
   • Mr Desmond said if the arson had been planned, Davies would not have lit isolated napkins on tables but piled them up near to other combustible materials.
   • He is piling them up because the stacks serve as a kind of yardstick, measuring a new social phenomenon that is gaining ground in Germany.
   • I pile them up in great heaps on my working desk and, honestly, I really do know where things are in all that mess.
   • The traffic signals have failed and cars are piled up, fender to bumper, loudly beeping and honking.
   • They didn't cart it off, they piled it up in the middle of the field.
   • The resort for burial is so great that they decompose the bodies by means of lime and then after but a year or two take out the bones and pile them up to make room within the small vaults for more.
   • A gigantic oak had been felled by a recent storm & my 10-year-old son & I decided to spend the day together, me chain sawing the oak & splitting the wood, & my son piling it up in the wheelbarrow & hauling it back up to the deck.
   • It started when they were toddlers - gathering rocks and tucking them into pockets (theirs and mine), piling them up on the steps and hiding them in the secret compartments in their jewelry boxes.

   Synonyms

   increase, grow, rise, mount, escalate, soar, spiral, leap up, shoot up, rocket, climb, accumulate, accrue, build up, multiply, intensify, swell

   amass, accumulate, collect, gather, gather in, pull in, assemble, stockpile, heap up, store up, garner, lay by, lay in, put by
4. 1.4pile something oninformal Intensify or exaggerate something for effect.
   〈非正式〉夸大；夸张
   you can pile on the guilt but my heart has turned to stone

   你尽管夸大罪责吧，反正我已心如铁石了。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The school are really piling the pressure on, and your child is giving a monologue, as a solitary spotlit figure against a dimly lit set.
   • Pigheaded motorists have been piling the pressure on already stretched emergency services and putting their own lives at risk by refusing to steer clear of flood-hit roads across North Yorkshire.
   • Insurance companies are piling the pressure on struggling local games committees with huge rises in the premiums for public liability insurance.
   • Have the site thoroughly researched, and take all the advice you can think of, piling consultants on consultants, before the job is let.
   • A truly successful person piles successes on top of each other.
   • A number have now broken rank and that piles the pressure on the Hearts owner and his new head coach.
   • Over the years as bandwidth got cheaper, extra features were piled on until it no longer mattered how small a file was, it only mattered that it could be viewed correctly.
   • Back in the 1930s and '50s, when the various public housing projects were being built on the site (the city kept piling poor people on top of each other), the Heritage Park area was parsed by a normal street grid.
   • Last year investors were piling the pressure on the group to sell off the nationals and focus on the more profitable regionals.
   • Huge extra costs were piled on to taxpayers at a time when the country's income was ebbing.
   • But, in what he described as a ‘big week for the championship’, the Arsenal boss piled the pressure on United.
   • You've got to look people in the eye today and just say, you know, do you like piling deficits on our kids?
   • The more the optional extras are piled on, the more burdensome the proceedings may become.
   • Nor does it require added frills, but Chevrier has piled them on anyway.
   • Unfortunately, the White House has been piling new errors on old.
   • Strange effects are piled on, and the song builds to a powerful climax of heavily distorted guitars and bleeping synthesizers.
   • Expectation levels may be lofty for the top billers such as Holmes but what irks is the fact that while the pressure is piled on in equal measure regardless of sex, the main focus remains on the men.
   • On this side of the Atlantic, places where the huddled masses massed - like the Lower East Side of Manhattan - piled people on top of one another to the tune hundreds of thousands per square mile in the early 1900s.
   • One tourist-industry insider backed McKinlay, saying: ‘It is a bit rich just piling the dirt on the Scottish Tourist Board.’
   • Miklós Rózsa's score, with its creepy Theramin-style theme, is way too insistent, piling the dramatic effects on so thickly that it becomes distracting.

2pile intono object (of a group of people) get into or out of (a vehicle) in a disorganized manner.

1. 2.1pile into (of a vehicle) crash into.
   （车）撞
   60 cars piled into each other on I-95

   在M62公路上60辆汽车撞在了一起。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The stunts are staged to increase the spectacle, so that when cars pile into each other or toy robots battle, there is an intricate detail and near artistic quality.
   • The big final was a typically full-blooded affair, with a complete restart being called as the cars piled into each other before the green flag fell.
   • Her twin sister Carly, who was in the front passenger seat, suffered a perforated eardrum and cuts from the smashed windscreen after the car piled into undergrowth.

1A heavy beam or post driven vertically into the bed of a river, soft ground, etc., to support the foundations of a structure.

2Heraldry
A triangular charge or ordinary formed by two lines meeting at an acute angle, usually pointing down from the top of the shield.

Strengthen or support (a structure) with piles.

The soft projecting surface of a carpet or a fabric such as velvet or flannel, consisting of many small threads.

with object, usually in combination Furnish with a pile.