PILES Synonyms: 260 Similar and Opposite Words

piles 1 of 3

noun (1)

plural of pile

as in stacks

a quantity of things thrown or stacked on one another a large pile of newspapers that needed to be disposed of

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Relevance

as in loads

a considerable amount a job that paid piles of money

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

piles

2 of 3

noun (2)

plural of pile

as in furs

a soft airy substance or covering the lush pile of the carpeting

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as in wools

the hairy covering of a mammal especially when fine, soft, and thick a dog with such a dense pile that he never minded the cold

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piles

3 of 3

verb

present tense third-person singular of pile

as in heaps

to lay or throw on top of one another piled all the clothes on the chair before putting them away

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

unpiles

as in huddles

to gather into a closely packed group the kids piled into the car

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of piles

Noun

One useful adjustment could improve the day far more than an ambitious overhaul that leaves everything temporarily in piles. — Tarot.com, Hartford Courant, 10 Nov. 2026 But when winter arrives, those leaves could be replaced by piles of snow. — CBS News, 9 Nov. 2026 Thrift stores themselves are also pushing past the perception of shoppers sifting through disorganized piles of secondhand items. — Barbara Zito, Martha Stewart, 9 Nov. 2026 Expect piles of steamed oysters, live music, shucking competitions, and eating contests. — Sarah Clark, Travel + Leisure, 6 Nov. 2026 On the dining table, at the top of one of the piles of books, is a biography of Yeats, and a book about Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello. — Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2026 Here, goats nose through massive piles of garbage left uncollected for weeks in the simmering 90-degree heat. — Ryan Lenora Brown, Christian Science Monitor, 5 Nov. 2026 In Alexandra township, where the road to the River Park Library voting station is filled with potholes, leaking sewage and piles of uncollected waste on the sidewalks, many still came out to cast their ballot. — ABC News, 4 Nov. 2026 Tech stocks have sagged as investors grow concerned over their ballooning debt piles at a time of rising interest rates. — semafor.com, 4 Nov. 2026

Verb

My father piles French toast and syrup onto a plate and my mother pours a glass of milk. — Literary Hub, 17 Sep. 2026 Big swine farms produce huge amounts of solid waste, which piles up in lagoons until a flood can wash them into rivers. — Bill McKibben, New Yorker, 17 Sep. 2026 Once a week, Hall piles his three kids in the car, drives five minutes to Costco and turns into the second row of the parking lot. — Jessica Guynn, USA Today, 30 July 2026 According to relationship experts at The Gottman Institute, couples who talk through those details in advance tend to adjust more smoothly and argue less about the small stuff that piles up after move-in day. — Ashley Lynch, Sacbee.com, 29 July 2026 Instead of asking whether existing programs are delivering results, Congress piles new spending and new funding streams onto an already fragmented system. — Andy Harris, Baltimore Sun, 4 July 2026 The dirty laundry never piles up, nor does the ready-to-fold pile. — Tessa Cooper, The Spruce, 30 June 2026 More specifically — and without spoiling a story that piles the twists as high as the corpses — Pine's an ex-British soldier pulled from his porter duties and recruited to surveil a ruthless arms dealer, Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) staying at the hotel. — Matt Cabral, Entertainment Weekly, 10 Apr. 2026 The result piles more pressure on Starmer, the least popular prime minister since records began, according to some polls. — Alexander Smith, NBC news, 27 Feb. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for piles

Noun

America was at an ugly and gut-churning crossroads, with some already crudely resisting whatever democratic gains had come because of stacks upon stacks of movement protests.

— Kevin Powell, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Nov. 2026
While published literature on the math of literally looking for needles in actual stacks of hay are thin on the ground, the principles of such a search lie in an area of math called probabilities.

— Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 7 Nov. 2026

Definition of stacks

Noun

The elasticity of the cloud isn’t available in an air-gapped on-premise environment; hence, the size needs to account for the peak loads.

— Karan Alang, Forbes.com, 6 Nov. 2026
PlusAI is a company working on autonomous trucking solutions with Nvidia, and the sand was in the trailers to simulate freight loads.

— Nick Indge, ArsTechnica, 6 Nov. 2026

Definition of loads

Noun

Investigators found in a closet dozens of Louis Vuitton handbags lining the top shelf, many pairs of Christian Louboutin boots and a display case full of handbags made of exotic furs.

— Rosalio Ahumada, Sacbee.com, 3 Nov. 2026
The Hollywood Reporter got a sneak peek of Meemaw, which sees Barr running amok in thrift store furs at rooster fights — closer in tone to trailer park comedy like My Name Is Earl than the three-camera repartee of Roseanne.

— Seth Abramovitch, HollywoodReporter, 20 Oct. 2026

Definition of furs

Noun

The clothing includes Donegal wools, awning stripes, statement plaids and houndstooths.

— Jean E. Palmieri, Footwear News, 2 Nov. 2026
Although the word cashmere is sometimes incorrectly applied to extremely soft wools, only the product of the cashmere goat is true cashmere.

— Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Mar. 2026

Definition of wools

Verb

San Andrés Mixquic, Mexico — As night falls over the cemetery in San Andrés Mixquic, a historic village on the outskirts of Mexico City, the family of Ángel Jiménez del Águila huddles around his grave.

— Rocio Muñoz Ledo, CNN Money, 31 Oct. 2026
Despite his injury, Tasci continued to be an active participant on the sideline and in team huddles throughout the game.

— Sean Campbell, Daily News, 28 Aug. 2026

Definition of huddles

Noun

The stunt was Depp’s second in-character appearance as Scrooge, coming three months after a similarly interactive appearance at San Diego Comic-Con that also generated mounds of social media content from passerby.

— J. Kim Murphy, IndieWire, 6 Nov. 2026
The soil surrounding termite mounds also provides good conditions for species such as naked mole rats and aardvarks to make their burrows.

— Chris Elphick, The Conversation, 6 Nov. 2026

Definition of mounds

Noun

Despite the freezing temperatures, agents confiscated the migrants’ coats and refused to give them blankets.

— Francisco Cantú, New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2026
There’s a part in the Robbie episode where Fiona talks about how flight attendants putting their coats and luggage in the closet that’s supposed to hold wheelchairs makes her life way harder.

— Katie Campione, Deadline, 2 Nov. 2026