pile

\pil\

/\pil\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“pile” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,786) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#4,786
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Superposition verticale d’objets, ensemble d’objets de même sorte placés les uns sur les autres.

Corpus desk

Index FR-pile · pile · French

pile · rank #4,786 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,786
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH nés

Nearest frequency peer: nés (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « pile »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « pile » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

pile vs PL
0% similar
pile vs pré
25% similar
pile vs pis
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for pile
PropertyValue
Headwordpile
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pil\
Letters4
Frequency rank#4,786
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « pile »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).pilese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « nés » (#4,785), « placée » (#4,787), « musiciens » (#4,784). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « pile » est au #4,786. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for pile is neighbouring look-alikes ("PL", "pré", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \pil\. Frequency #4,786 among 6,826 “P” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for pile, with forms such as "iple", "piel", and "ppile". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PL", "pré", "pis", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is pile, spelled P-I-L-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Superposition verticale d’objets, ensemble d’objets de même sorte placés les uns sur les autres.
  2. 2
    Différentes sortes d’appareils produisant un courant électrique, dont le premier était fait de disques de cuivre et de zinc empilés les uns sur les autres et séparés par des rondelles de drap ou de carton imbibées d’eau acidulée.
  3. 3
    Lampe électrique portative à piles.
  4. 4
    Massifs de maçonnerie qui soutiennent les arches d’un pont et son tablier.
  5. 5
    Motif en forme de pointe orientée vers le bas.
  6. 6
    Structure de données séquentielle en LIFO, c’est à dire où le premier élément accessible est le dernier à avoir été ajouté.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how pile appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Une pile de carreaux, de bois, de livres, d’écus.
  2. Skipper en sortit comme on sort d’une cave trop basse, plié à angle droit. Il se redressa lentement et remua les épaules l’une après l’autre, une façon de se remettre les vertèbres en pile, après quoi il pénétra dans la brasserie ….

Synonyms

empilementtas

This word in other languages

stack(English)pila(Español)Stapel(Deutsch)pilha(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • iple
  • piel
  • ppile

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pile - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

iple2piel2ppile1
Edit distance from "pile"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pile"?
"pile" is spelled P-I-L-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pil\.
What does "pile" mean?
As a noun, "pile" means: Superposition verticale d’objets, ensemble d’objets de même sorte placés les uns sur les autres.
What words are commonly confused with "pile"?
"pile" is commonly confused with "PL", "pré", "pis". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pile"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pile" is \pil\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pile" come from?
"pile" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pile", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Metz#4,781issu#4,769gain#4,762unes#4,815

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list