heap
noun
- tree-based data structure in computer science
verb
- to throw or lay in a heap : pile or collect in great quantity
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /hiːp/ / /heːp/
adv
Etymology: 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)).
- very or much; representing broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans
“Chuckaway too no good. Heap water, little chuckaway. Heap sticks, and still little chuckaway.”
“We are all familiar with the stereotyped broken English which writers of Western stories, comic strips, and similar literature put into the mouths of Indians: 'me heap big chief', 'you like um fire water', and so forth.”
name
Etymology: English surname, from the noun heap.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: 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)).
- A crowd; a throng; a multitude or great number of people.
“A Heap of Vassals, and Slaues: […] A People that is without Naturall Affection, […] A Nation without Morality, without Letters, Arts, or Sciences”
“He had plenty of friends, heaps of friends in the parliamentary sense”
- 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”
“Huge heaps of slain around the body rise.”
- A great number or large quantity of things.
“a vast heap, both of places of scripture and quotations”
“I have noticed a heap of things in my life.”
- A data structure consisting of trees in which each node is greater than all its children.
- Memory that is dynamically allocated.
“You should move these structures from the stack to the heap to avoid a potential stack overflow.”
- A dilapidated place or vehicle.
“My first car was an old heap.”
“Chuffy: It's on a knife edge at the moment, Bertie. If he can get planning permission, old Stoker's going to take this heap off my hands in return for vast amounts of oof.”
- A lot, a large amount.
“Thanks a heap!”
“[W]e went to the play, and Pen was struck all of a heap with Miss Fotheringay … And he’s fallen in love with her—and I’m blessed if he hasn’t proposed to her […]”
verb
Etymology: 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)).
- To pile in a heap.
“He heaped the laundry upon the bed and began folding.”
- To form or round into a heap, as in measuring.
“Cry a reward, to him who shall first bring News of that vanished Arabian, A full-heap’d helmet of the purest gold.”
- To supply in great quantity.
“They heaped praise upon their newest hero.”
“Then, in January, a creeping tsunami of train cancellations, triggered by major staff absences as a result of the aggressive transmissibility of Omicron, heaped further misery on rail users.”