noun A group or list of related items up for consideration, especially in some kind of selection process.
When we were looking for a new housemate, we put the nice woman on the "maybe" pile, and the annoying guy on the "no" pile.
noun A mass formed in layers.
a pile of shot
noun A funeral pile; a pyre.
noun A large amount of money.
He made a pile from that invention of his.
noun A large building, or mass of buildings.
noun A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; a fagot.
noun A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals (especially copper and zinc), laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; a voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.