heap

[heep] /hip/

noun

a group of things placed, thrown, or lying one on another; pile:

a heap of stones.

Informal. a great quantity or number; multitude:

a heap of people.

Slang. an automobile, especially a dilapidated one.

verb (used with object)

to gather, put, or cast in a heap; pile (often followed by up, on, together, etc.).

to accumulate or amass (often followed by up or together):

to heap up riches.

to give, assign, or bestow in great quantity; load (often followed by on or upon):

to heap blessings upon someone; to heap someone with work.

to load, supply, or fill abundantly:

to heap a plate with food.

verb (used without object)

to become heaped or piled, as sand or snow; rise in a heap or heaps (often followed by up).

Idioms

all of a heap, Informal.

overwhelmed with astonishment; amazed:
We were struck all of a heap upon hearing of their divorce.
suddenly; abruptly:
All of a heap the room was empty.

Origin

before 900; 1925-30 for def 3; Middle English heep, Old English hēap; cognate with Dutch hoop, Old High German houf; akin to German Haufe

Related forms

heaper, noun

heapy, adjective

overheap, verb (used with object)

unheaped, adjective

Synonyms

1. mass, stack; accumulation, collection.

Examples from the web for heap

While the player was unhurt, his car was a shredded heap of mangled metal.
For decades economists have stood at the top of the heap and historians near the bottom.
But all too soon, his amazing skill gets him into a heap of trouble.
He looked at the heap of mashed turnips, and the golden baked squash, and the pale fried parsnips.
They will be remembered long after their robotic brothers are shipped off to the scrap heap.
To do it all, you need a whole heap of processing power.
That's stuck with me ever since and it has kept me out of a heap o' trouble.
The first generation of robotic tuna had to be tethered to a heap of electronics the size of a fridge.
Shred your scraps and mix them into your backyard or school compost heap.
He collapsed in a heap and remained face down on the mound for several minutes.

British Dictionary definitions for heap

heap

/hiːp/

noun

a collection of articles or mass of material gathered together in one place

(informal) (often pl) usually foll by of. a large number or quantity

(Austral, slang) give them heaps, to contend strenuously with an opposing sporting team

(NZ, slang) give it heaps, to try very hard

(informal) a place or thing that is very old, untidy, unreliable, etc: the car was a heap

adverb

heaps, (intensifier): he said he was feeling heaps better

verb

often foll by up or together. to collect or be collected into or as if into a heap or pile: to heap up wealth

(transitive; often foll by with, on, or upon) to load or supply (with) abundantly: to heap with riches

Derived Forms

heaper, noun

Word Origin

Old English héap; related to Old Frisian hāp, Old Saxon hōp, Old High German houf

Word Origin and History for heap

Old English heap "pile, great number, multitude" (of things or persons), from West Germanic *haupaz (cf. Old Saxon hop, Old Frisian hap, Middle Low German hupe, Dutch hoop, German Haufe "heap"), perhaps related to Old English heah "high." Slang meaning "old car" is attested from 1924. As a characteristic word in American Indian English speech, "a lot, a great deal," by 1832.

Old English heapian "collect, heap up, bring together;" from heap (n.). Related: Heaped; heaping. Cf. Old High German houfon "to heap."

Slang definitions & phrases for heap

heap

noun

A car, esp an old ramshackle one; jalopy: I keep hoping somebody will steal this heap
Any old vehicle

Related Terms

junk heap

[1924+; a motorcyclists' shortening of scrap heap]

heap in Technology

1. An area of memory used for dynamic memory allocation where blocks of memory are allocated and freed in an arbitrary order and the pattern of allocation and size of blocks is not known until run time. Typically, a program has one heap which it may use for several different purposes.
Heap is required by languages in which functions can return arbitrary data structures or functions with free variables (see closure). In C functions malloc and free provide access to the heap.
Contrast stack. See also dangling pointer.
2. A data structure with its elements partially ordered (sorted) such that finding either the minimum or the maximum (but not both) of the elements is computationally inexpensive (independent of the number of elements), while both adding a new item and finding each subsequent smallest/largest element can be done in O(log n) time, where n is the number of elements.
Formally, a heap is a binary tree with a key in each node, such that all the leaves of the tree are on two adjacent levels; all leaves on the lowest level occur to the left and all levels, except possibly the lowest, are filled; and the key in the root is at least as large as the keys in its children (if any), and the left and right subtrees (if they exist) are again heaps.
Note that the last condition assumes that the goal is finding the minimum quickly.
Heaps are often implemented as one-dimensional arrays. Still assuming that the goal is finding the minimum quickly the invariant is
heap[i] where heap[i] denotes the i-th element, heap[1] being the first. Heaps can be used to implement priority queues or in sort algorithms.
(1996-02-26)

heap in the Bible

When Joshua took the city of Ai (Josh. 8), he burned it and "made it an heap [Heb. tel] for ever" (8:28). The ruins of this city were for a long time sought for in vain. It has been at length, however, identified with the mound which simply bears the name of "Tel." "There are many Tels in modern Palestine, that land of Tels, each Tel with some other name attached to it to mark the former site. But the site of Ai has no other name 'unto this day.' It is simply et-Tel, 'the heap' par excellence."