English
heap
Pronunciation Noun

heap (plural heaps)

  1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
    • 1623, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement touching an Holy War
      a heap of vassals and slaves
    • He had heaps of friends.
  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 or stones
    • Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.
  3. A great number or large quantity of things.
    • a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations
    • 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.
    • 1991 May 12, "Kidnapped!" 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.
    My first car was an old heap.
  7. (colloquial) A lot, a large amount
    Thanks a heap!
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

heap (heaps, present participle heaping; 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.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Adverb

heap (not comparable)

  1. (representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans; may be offensive) Very.
    • 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.


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