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heam

heap

- 7 dictionary results

heap

[heep]

Use heap in a Sentence

–noun

1.	a group of things placed, thrown, or lying one on another; pile: a heap of stones.

2.	Informal. a great quantity or number; multitude: a heap of people.

3.	Slang. an automobile, esp. a dilapidated one.

–verb (used with object)

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

5.	to accumulate or amass (often fol. by up or together): to heap up riches.

6.	to give, assign, or bestow in great quantity; load (often fol. by on or upon): to heap blessings upon someone; to heap someone with work.

7.	to load, supply, or fill abundantly: to heap a plate with food.

–verb (used without object)

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

—Idiom

all of a heap, Informal.

a.	overwhelmed with astonishment; amazed: We were struck all of a heap upon hearing of their divorce.

b.	suddenly; abruptly: All of a heap the room was empty.

Origin:
bef. 900; 1925–30 for def. 3; ME heep, OE hēap; c. D hoop, OHG houf; akin to G Haufe

Related forms:

heaper, noun

heapy, adjective

Synonyms:
1. mass, stack; accumulation, collection.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To heap

heap (hēp)

A group of things placed or thrown, one on top of the other: a heap of dirty rags lying in the corner.
Informal A great deal; a lot. Often used in the plural: We have heaps of homework tonight.
Slang An old or run-down car.

tr.v. heaped, heap·ing, heaps

To put or throw in a pile.
To fill completely or to overflowing: heap a plate with vegetables.
To bestow in abundance or lavishly: heaped praise on the rescuers.

[Middle English, from Old English hēap.]

Synonyms: These nouns denote a group or collection of things lying one on top of the other: a heap of old newspapers; a bank of thunderclouds; a mound of boulders; a pile of boxes; a stack of firewood.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Heap

Heap\, n. [OE. heep, heap, heap, multitude, AS. he['a]p; akin to OS. h?p, D. hoop, OHG. houf, h?fo, G. haufe, haufen, Sw. hop, Dan. hob., Icel. h?pr troop, flock, Russ. kupa heap, crowd, Lith. kaupas. Cf. Hope, in Forlorn hope.]

1. A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of persons. [Now Low or Humorous]

The wisdom of a heap of learned men. --Chaucer.

A heap of vassals and slaves. --Bacon.

He had heaps of friends. --W.Black.

2. A great number or large quantity of things not placed in a pile. [Now Low or Humorous]

A vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations. --Bp. Burnet.

I have noticed a heap of things in my life. --R. L. Stevenson.

3. A pile or mass; a collection of things laid in a body, or thrown together so as to form an elevation; as, a heap of earth or stones.

Huge heaps of slain around the body rise. --Dryden.

Heap

Heap\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Heaped; p. pr. & vb. n. Heaping.] [AS. he['a]pian.]

1. To collect in great quantity; to amass; to lay up; to accumulate; -- usually with up; as, to heap up treasures.

Though he heap up silver as the dust. --Job. xxvii. 16.

2. To throw or lay in a heap; to make a heap of; to pile; as, to heap stones; -- often with up; as, to heap up earth; or with on; as, to heap on wood or coal.

3. To form or round into a heap, as in measuring; to fill (a measure) more than even full.

Language Translation for : heap

Spanish: montón,

German: der Haufen,

Japanese: (～の) 山

More Translations »

heap

O.E. heap "pile, great number, multitude," from W.Gmc. *khaupaz (cf. O.S. hop, M.L.G. hupe, Du. hoop, Ger. Haufe "heap"), probably related to O.E. heah "high." The verb is from O.E. heapian. Slang meaning "old car" is attested from 1924.

heap
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] <= heap[2*i] and heap[i] <= heap[2*i+1] for all 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

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."

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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