pile
part of speech
noun (pile, piles); verb (pile, piles, piled, piling)
meaning for a pupil
1) A pile is a lot of things put one on top of another. tree →
2) To pile (up) is to put things in a pile, or to grow into a pile. tree →
3) «Piles of» or «a pile of» can mean a lot of: piles of homework. tree →
4) A pile is also a big post pushed into the ground to hold up a building or bridge. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: a group of things; equal piles mean equal groups; sorting into piles; per pile = total ÷ piles. In everyday life: a pile of laundry, a pile of leaves to jump in. In science and building: piles hold up bridges and houses on soft ground. In stories: «a pile of gold».
examples
- There are 4 piles of 10 books. tree →
- She made 3 piles of leaves. tree →
- He put the cards into 5 equal piles. tree →
- How many are in each pile? tree →
- The kids jumped into the pile of leaves. tree →
- My clothes are in a pile on the floor. tree →
- The snow piled up against the door. tree →
- I have a pile of homework tonight. tree →
- Sort the coins into piles of ten. tree →
- On a pile of cushions, covered with tapestry, sat the boy. tree →
note
Equal piles: total = piles × per pile; per pile = total ÷ piles. Trap: if the piles are not equal, add each pile. «Pile up» can mean things are collecting: «the dishes piled up». Safety: piles of heavy boxes can fall over; do not climb them.
In the corpora
- AI can sort emails at work and save time, but it sometimes puts important ones in the wrong pile.
- Meerkats live in big burrows with many tunnels and sleep piled together, because deserts get cold at night.
- It has left its mother, brothers and sisters and the warm pile where it slept.
- Picture the first night: the puppy cries in the dark kitchen because it misses that warm pile.
- Kick through a pile of yellow and red leaves and you are walking on a tree's old solar panels.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «pile» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.