What's the difference between pile and pillar?

Pile


Definition:

  • (n.) A hair; hence, the fiber of wool, cotton, and the like; also, the nap when thick or heavy, as of carpeting and velvet.
  • (n.) A covering of hair or fur.
  • (n.) The head of an arrow or spear.
  • (n.) A large stake, or piece of timber, pointed and driven into the earth, as at the bottom of a river, or in a harbor where the ground is soft, for the support of a building, a pier, or other superstructure, or to form a cofferdam, etc.
  • (n.) One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost.
  • (v. t.) To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles.
  • (n.) A mass of things heaped together; a heap; as, a pile of stones; a pile of wood.
  • (n.) A mass formed in layers; as, a pile of shot.
  • (n.) A funeral pile; a pyre.
  • (n.) A large building, or mass of buildings.
  • (n.) Same as Fagot, n., 2.
  • (n.) A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals, as copper and zinc, laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; -- commonly called Volta's pile, voltaic pile, or galvanic pile.
  • (n.) The reverse of a coin. See Reverse.
  • (v. t.) To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate; to amass; -- often with up; as, to pile up wood.
  • (v. t.) To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Electron microscopy revealed the presence of a hitherto unreported peculiar "pilovacuolar" inclusion in numerous mitochondria, composed of an electron dense pile or rod within a vacuole, while globular or crystalline inclusions were absent.
  • (2) Piling refugees on trains in the hopes that they go far, far away brings back memories of the darkest period of our continent,” he told Der Spiegel.
  • (3) After the gunfight the marines made the shocking discovery of bodies of 58 men and 14 women in a room, some piled on top of each other.
  • (4) Chris Williamson, of data provider Markit, said: "A batch of dismal data and a gloomier assessment of the economic outlook has cast a further dark cloud over the UK's economic health, piling pressure on the government to review its fiscal policy and growth strategy.
  • (5) This is a substantial country, not just a pile of bricks.
  • (6) Then they become increasingly unable to afford the probation fees that are piled on by private companies paid to oversee them, including fees for everything from basic supervision to drug tests.
  • (7) For each indicated educational--motivating unity parents have to be completely prepared for better and more complete than usual piling of facts and presenting in front of them unsolvable tasks and obligations.
  • (8) According to its physical and biochemical properties, poly(L-malate) may alternatively function as a molecular chaperone in nucleosome assembly in the S phase and as both an inhibitor and a stock-piling agent of DNA-polymerase-alpha-primase in the G2 phase and M phase of the plasmodial cell cycle.
  • (9) You’d think such a spry, successful man would busy himself with other things besides crawling into a pile of stuffed animals to scare his daughter’s date.
  • (10) In the spare room, there was a pile of CVs aimed at charities to secure this “free labour” imposed by the benefits system.
  • (11) Vote for me, and I will complete the job of rebalancing it... January 28, 2014 12.03pm GMT Britain's businesses need to stop sitting on their cash piles and crank up their investment, argues IPPR’s chief economist Tony Dolphin: “The news that manufacturing is growing is welcome.
  • (12) There are 80,000 bars and restaurants there and they're often piled eight stories high on top of each other.
  • (13) Cards pile on the runs, and here comes Hurdle to get Burnett, about three batters too late.
  • (14) When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white... Further - and this is a stroke of his sensitive, pawky genius - he contemplates his momentarily displaced furniture and the nuance of enchanting strangeness: It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack, and my three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the pines and hickories ...
  • (15) Rather, it's because because policymakers and administrators have come to treat higher education as a commercial marketplace, rather than a public trust – and stop-gap student loan reforms like those "unveiled" by President Obama this week fail to confront this ethical dilemma underlying the debt pile.
  • (16) There is a half-drunk glass of white wine abandoned on the coffee table at his Queensferry home - the Browns had friends around for dinner the previous night - and a stack of children's books and board games piled lopsidedly under a Christmas tree now shedding needles with abandon.
  • (17) Signs that large companies are ready to start spending some of the cash piles they have been sitting on while smaller firms are prepared to borrow to expand reflect a brighter outlook for sales.
  • (18) Britain's Serious Fraud Office has launched a formal criminal investigation into GlaxoSmithKline's sales practices, piling further pressure on the drugmaker which is already being investigated by Chinese authorities and elsewhere amid allegations of bribery.
  • (19) After more than a quarter of a century of camping out, the house, with its seven flights of stairs (a trial to Lessing in her final years), seemed almost to be supported by a precarious interior scaffolding of piles of books and shelves.
  • (20) The ONS said UK's debt pile had risen to £1.11tn or 70.7% of GDP.

Pillar


Definition:

  • (n.) The general and popular term for a firm, upright, insulated support for a superstructure; a pier, column, or post; also, a column or shaft not supporting a superstructure, as one erected for a monument or an ornament.
  • (n.) Figuratively, that which resembles such a pillar in appearance, character, or office; a supporter or mainstay; as, the Pillars of Hercules; a pillar of the state.
  • (n.) A portable ornamental column, formerly carried before a cardinal, as emblematic of his support to the church.
  • (n.) The center of the volta, ring, or manege ground, around which a horse turns.
  • (a.) Having a support in the form of a pillar, instead of legs; as, a pillar drill.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The binding sites were mainly located on the stereocilia, the cuticular plate of hair cells, the head plates of Deiters' cells, fibrous structures in pillar cells, in the spiral limbus and tectorial membrane and basilar membrane, plasma membranes, mitochondria and the chromatin of various kinds of cells.
  • (2) Protesters set fire to rubbish bins and tyres, creating pillars of black smoke among the apartment blocks and office buildings in central Tehran.
  • (3) The west African nation, once seen as a pillar of democracy in the troubled region, has been split in two since a coup in March.
  • (4) Pores about 8 nm in diameter are again to be found where the pillars are anchored in the outer cell membrane.
  • (5) Investment spending fell by 4.4%, leaving government spending as the only pillar that was growing, by 1%.
  • (6) Job security is a key pillar of professional fulfilment and academic research has found that feeling settled in a job can increase motivation and productivity and reduces the likelihood of staff taking time off work due to illness.
  • (7) Thomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey, the two Swedes behind the stunt, said they wanted to show support for Belarussian human rights activists and to embarrass the country's military, a pillar of Lukashenko's power.
  • (8) Marine Rotational Force – Darwin” (MRF-D) is one of four American marine air ground task forces (MAGTFs) in the Asia-Pacific region, along with those in Guam, Hawaii and Okinawa, the sum of which make up a central strategic pillar of the pivot.
  • (9) The secondary lamellae of the gills were shortened and deformed and the epithelial cells were disoriented with regard to the pillar cell system.
  • (10) Risks include terrorist bombings, riots and stampedes in the tunnels and pedestrian walkways leading to the Jamarat stoning pillars (representing Satan) – as well as the routine hazards of heat and disease.
  • (11) The exhibition will include the earliest roadside pillar box erected on the mainland – in 1853, a year after the first went up in Jersey in the Channel Isles – and unique and priceless sheets of Penny Black stamps.
  • (12) A just-formed unity government in Baghdad which has yet to prove itself, and a non-jihadist rebel force in Syria which was judged until yesterday to have almost disappeared, are weak pillars for an ambitious policy.
  • (13) And together they met on a cold, grey Friday in Margate – two pillars of the establishment albeit of a very different kind.
  • (14) As it has elevated "hygge" (cosiness) into a way of life, Copenhagen has elevated the humble bicycle into a cultural icon, a pillar of its image.
  • (15) Considerable improvements could be made by providing impact attenuation in the head contact areas on the door, roof and B-pillar.
  • (16) The fracture lines through the articular pillar were difficult to detect in some cases or to distinguish from a facet joint in others.
  • (17) The sanctity of voting in private may be one of the pillars of democracy, but in an age of byzantine disenfranchisement rules and empowering social-media platforms, outlawing a picture of your candidate selection is a missed opportunity and a failure of imagination.
  • (18) I think this shake-up at Fifa is fantastic because the next Fifa president could have this wonderful platform — here’s one of his pillars for his legacy,” Foudy said.
  • (19) The principle of this technique is that the divergent laser beam enters a glass square pillar, propagates through the pillar repeating the total reflection and emerges with a uniform intensity distribution over the cross-section at the end of the pillar.
  • (20) Biopsies were obtained from their respiratory papillomas and nondiseased sites (NDS) of the respiratory tract: the nasopharynx, posterior tonsillar pillar, aryepiglottic fold, cervical trachea, intrathoracic trachea, and bronchi.