pile [OE] Three different Latin words lie behind three different types of pile. Pile [LME] meaning ‘heap’ comes via Old French, from Latin pila ‘*pillar, pier’. The association with money in make one’s pile is from the phrase ‘pile of wealth’. Pile meaning a ‘heavy post’ driven into the ground to support a superstructure was pīl ‘dart, arrow’, and ‘pointed stake’ in Old English. It was adopted early into Germanic languages from Latin pilum ‘(heavy) javelin’. The pile of a carpet [ME] was first recorded in the sense ‘downy feather’. It comes from Latin pilus ‘hair’, found also in depilatory [E17th]. Its current sense dates from the mid 16th century.