heap

Middle English heep, from Old English hēap, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (compare Dutch hoop, Low German Hupen, German Haufen), from Proto-Indo-European *koupos ‘hill’ (compare Lithuanian kaũpas, Albanian qipi ‘stack’, Avestan 𐬀𐬟𐬂𐬐‎ (kåfa))

• enPR: hēp, IPA^(key): /hiːp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːp

heap (plural heaps)

1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
   • Francis Bacon

     a heap of vassals and slaves

   • W. Black

     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

   • Dryden

     Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.

   • 2012 May 9, Jonathan Wilson, “Europa League: Radamel Falcao's Atlético Madrid rout Athletic Bilbao”, in the Guardian‎:

     Every break seemed dangerous and Falcao clearly had the beating of Amorebieta. Others, being forced to stretch a foot behind them to control Arda Turan's 34th-minute cross, might simply have lashed a shot on the turn; Falcao, though, twisted back on to his left foot, leaving Amorebieta in a heap, and thumped in an inevitable finish – his 12th goal in 15 European matches this season.

3. A great number or large quantity of things.
   • Bishop Burnet

     a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations

   • Robert Louis Stevenson

     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!

• See also Thesaurus:lot

• compost heap

• heap-allocated
• it takes a heap of living to make a house a home

• Sranan Tongo: ipi

heap (third-person singular simple present 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

• heap up
• overheap
• heaped (adj), heaping (adj)

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.

• HAPE, HEPA, epha, hep A

From Proto-Germanic *haupaz. Cognate with Old High German houf, Old Norse hópr.

• IPA^(key): /hæːɑ̯p/

hēap m

1. group
2. heap

• hēapmǣlum

• Middle English: heep
  • English: heap

heap m or f (in variation) (plural heaps)

1. (computing) heap (tree-based data structure)

heap c (plural heapen or heappen, diminutive heapke)

1. heap, pile
2. mass, gang, horde

• “heap”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011