piles
Britishplural noun
Etymology
Origin of piles
C15: from Latin pilae balls (referring to the appearance of external piles)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“We lived in…this world where we were piling up bigger and bigger piles of capital, which pushed down the cost of capital, pushed down interest rates,” Clark noted.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
They found Homer, but it took weeks to uncover Langley, who had been crushed beneath one of his own towering piles.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
"There is just so much of it," he said, gesturing toward piles of food parcels at the protest site in the Indian capital.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
But the cluster of blue-paneled, four-story apartment buildings—constructed by a Turkish contractor—quickly crumbled into piles of twisted metal and plywood when the earthquakes rocked Venezuela’s northern coast.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
The others continued past a living room where kids played video games, and a dining room where more kids ate from a banquet of fruit pies and piles of soft bread and a chocolate fountain.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
