Heaps

How to spell heaps

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce heaps

What does heaps mean?

1. nounUntidy mounds or piles of things gathered together.
2. nounInformally, a large amount or great quantity of something.

Heaps in a sentence

• Heaps of laundry covered the bedroom floor.

• We still have heaps of time before the train leaves.

• The council cleared the heaps of rubble after the storm.

• The new job pays heaps more than the old one.

Where does heaps come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English heap, which meant a pile, a multitude, or even a crowd of people, and it has cousins across the Germanic languages, including the Dutch hoop and the German Haufe. The original sense covered both a literal mound of physical stuff and a large gathering, so an Anglo-Saxon could speak of a heap of stones or a heap of folk. Over the centuries the everyday meaning narrowed toward a loose pile of things, while the older sense of a great quantity survived in the casual plural usage, as in heaps of time or heaps of money. The spelling keeps the ea vowel pairing typical of native English words, the same pattern seen in heat, leap, and reap. Because it is a homely, native word rather than a learned borrowing, it has stayed simple and stable in form for well over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• heap (Old English heap: a pile, multitude)
• -s (plural/third-person marker)