lot vs pile

lot

noun
  • A large quantity or number; a great deal. 

  • That which happens without human design or forethought. 

  • One or more items auctioned or sold as a unit, separate from other items. 

  • Anything (as a die, pebble, ball, or slip of paper) used in determining a question by chance, or without human choice or will. 

  • A number of people taken collectively. 

  • A distinct portion or plot of land, usually smaller than a field. 

  • A separate portion; a number of things taken collectively. 

  • A prize in a lottery. 

  • Allotment; lottery. 

  • An old unit of weight used in many European countries from the Middle Ages, often defined as 1/30 or 1/32 of a (local) pound. 

  • All members of a set; everything. 

  • The part, or fate, that falls to one, as it were, by chance, or without one's planning. 

pile

noun
  • A large amount of money. 

  • A large building, or mass of buildings. 

  • One of the ordinaries or subordinaries having the form of a wedge, usually placed palewise, with the broadest end uppermost. 

  • The head of an arrow or spear. 

  • A list or league 

  • A mass formed in layers. 

  • A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; a fagot. 

  • A beam, pole, or pillar, driven completely into the ground. 

  • A large stake, or piece of pointed timber, steel etc., driven into the earth or sea-bed for the support of a building, a pier, or other superstructure, or to form a cofferdam, etc. 

  • A mass of things heaped together; a heap. 

  • Hair, especially when very fine or short; the fine underfur of certain animals. (Formerly countable, now treated as a collective singular.) 

  • An atomic pile; an early form of nuclear reactor. 

  • A vertical series of alternate disks of two dissimilar metals (especially copper and zinc), laid up with disks of cloth or paper moistened with acid water between them, for producing a current of electricity; a voltaic pile, or galvanic pile. 

  • The raised hairs, loops or strands of a fabric; the nap of a cloth. 

  • A hemorrhoid. 

  • A funeral pile; a pyre. 

  • A group or list of related items up for consideration, especially in some kind of selection process. 

verb
  • To add something to a great number. 

  • (of vehicles) To create a hold-up. 

  • To place (guns, muskets, etc.) together in threes so that they can stand upright, supporting each other. 

  • To drive piles into; to fill with piles; to strengthen with piles. 

  • To give a pile to; to make shaggy. 

  • To lay or throw into a pile or heap; to heap up; to collect into a mass; to accumulate 

  • To cover with heaps; or in great abundance; to fill or overfill; to load. 

How often have the words lot and pile occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )