heap
/hiːp/noun, verb, adverb
heap is spelled H-E-A-P: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.9 times per million words in written English, the 13,127th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, heap means “A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of heap is heaps.
How many letters and syllables are in heap?
| Letters | 4: H-E-A-P |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.9 times per million words; the 13,127th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is heap?
Heap appears 3.9 times per million words in written English, the 13,127th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce heap?
- /hiːp/
- /heːp/
Heap has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-heap.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of heap
- heaps plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- heaping participle, present
- heaped participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does heap mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
- 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; a heap of stones
- 3
A great number or large quantity of things.
- 4
A data structure consisting of trees in which each node is greater than all its children.
- 5
Memory that is dynamically allocated.
You should move these structures from the stack to the heap to avoid a potential stack overflow.
- 6
colloquialA dilapidated place or vehicle.
My first car was an old heap.
- 7
colloquialA lot, a large amount.
Thanks a heap!
verb
- 1
To pile in a heap.
He heaped the laundry upon the bed and began folding.
- 2
To form or round into a heap, as in measuring.
- 3
To supply in great quantity.
They heaped praise upon their newest hero.
adverb
- 1
offensivevery or much; representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans
noun
- 1
Acronym of high explosive armor-piercing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Heap in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Menschenmenge, Masse , Haufen, Haufe , Heap |
| Portuguese | multidão , pilha, monte , heap , carripana , empilhar |
| French | tas, pile, monceau |
| Spanish | montón , montículo , amontonar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does heap come from?
From Middle English hepe, from Old English hēap, from Proto-West Germanic *haup, from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (compare Dutch hoop, German Low German Hupen, German Haufen), from Proto-Indo-European *koupos (“hill”) (compare Lithuanian kaũpas, Albanian qipi (“stack”), Avestan 𐬐𐬂𐬟𐬀 (kåfa)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).