From Middle English hepe, from Old English hēap, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (compare Dutch hoop, nds-de Hupen, German Haufen), from Proto-Indo-European *koupos (compare Lithuanian kaũpas, Albanian qipi, Avestan 𐬐𐬂𐬟𐬀).

• enPR: hēp, IPA: /hiːp/
• ((Ireland), dated) enPR: hāp, IPA: /heːp/

heap (plural heaps)

1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
   • 1622 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “An Advertisement Touching an Holy VVarre. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany VVorks of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban. […], London: […] I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, […], published 1629, →OCLC ↗, page 104 ↗:

     A Heap of Vassals, and Slaues: […] A People that is without Naturall Affection, […] A Nation without Morality, without Letters, Arts, or Sciences

   • 1858, Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He had plenty of friends, heaps of friends in the parliamentary sense

2. A pile or mass; a collection of things laid in a body, or thrown together so as to form an elevation.

   a heap of earth; a heap of stones

   • 1697, Virgil, translated by John Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC ↗:

     Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.

3. A great number or large quantity of things.
   • 1679, Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England:

     a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations

   • 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, Will o' the Mill:

     I have noticed a heap of things in my life.

4. (computing) A data structure consisting of trees in which each node is greater than all its children.
5. (computing) Memory that is dynamically allocated.

   You should move these structures from the stack to the heap to avoid a potential stack overflow.

6. (colloquial) A dilapidated place or vehicle.

   My first car was an old heap.

   • 1991 May 12, “Kidnapped!”, in Jeeves and Wooster, Series 2, Episode 5:

     Chuffy: It's on a knife edge at the moment, Bertie. If he can get planning permission, old Stoker's going to take this heap off my hands in return for vast amounts of oof.

7. (colloquial) A lot, a large amount

   Thanks a heap!

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 10, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC ↗:

     [W]e went to the play, and Pen was struck all of a heap with Miss Fotheringay … And he’s fallen in love with her—and I’m blessed if he hasn’t proposed to her […]

• See also Thesaurus:lot

• German: Menschenmenge, Masse
• Italian: folla, massa, moltitudine
• Portuguese: multidão

• French: tas, pile, monceau
• German: Haufen, Haufe
• Italian: pila, cumulo, catasta, mucchio
• Portuguese: pilha, monte
• Russian: ку́ча
• Spanish: pila, montón, cúmulo

• French: tas
• Italian: moltitudine, massa, marea
• Portuguese: monte
• Russian: ку́ча

• French: tas, pile
• German: Heap
• Portuguese: heap
• Russian: ку́ча
• Spanish: montículo

• Russian: ку́ча

• Portuguese: carripana, calhambeque, chaço, chaço-velho

heap (heaps, present participle heaping; simple past and past participle heaped)

1. (transitive) To pile in a heap.

   He heaped the laundry upon the bed and began folding.

2. (transitive) To form or round into a heap, as in measuring.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act I, scene II, verses 40-42:

     Cry a reward, to him who shall first bring
     News of that vanished Arabian,
     A full-heap’d helmet of the purest gold.

3. (transitive) To supply in great quantity.

   They heaped praise upon their newest hero.

• (pile in a heap) amass, heap up, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up

• Italian: ammucchiare, ammassare, accatastare
• Portuguese: empilhar, amontoar
• Spanish: amontonar

• Italian: ricolmare, ricoprire
• Portuguese: amontoar
• Spanish: amontonar

• Italian: colmare, ricolmare, coprire, sommergere, riempire
• Spanish: amontonar

heap (not comparable)

1. (possibly, offensive) very; representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans
   • 1980, Joey Lee Dillard, Perspectives on American English, page 417:

     We are all familiar with the stereotyped broken English which writers of Western stories, comic strips, and similar literature put into the mouths of Indians: 'me heap big chief', 'you like um fire water', and so forth.

   • 2004, John Robert Colombo, The Penguin Book of Canadian Jokes, page 175:

     Once upon a time, a Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are captured by the Red Indians […] He approaches the Englishman, pinches the skin of his upper arm, and says, "Hmmm, heap good skin, nice and thick.

1. Surname.