▪ I. ˈthree-piled, a.1
(-paɪld)
[f. prec. + -ed2. Cf. piled ppl. a.3 2.]
1. = three-pile. Also transf. of grass, Growing thickly with a soft surface like velvet.
| 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. i. ii. 35 Thou art good veluet; thou'rt a three pild peece I warrant thee. 1605 Lond. Prodigal i. i. 140 Sixe peeces of vellet{ddd}a peece of Ash⁓colour, a three pilde blacke [etc.]. 1610 Chester's Tri. (Chetham Soc.) 41 Our verdant pastures three pil'd greene in graine. a 1861 Mrs. Browning Nature's Remorses ii, On three-piled carpet of compliments. |
2. fig. Of the highest quality, refined, exquisite; also, of very great degree, excessive, extreme, intense (cf. threefold, treble, triple). ? Obs.
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 407 Taffata phrases, silken tearmes precise, Three-pil'd Hyperboles. a 1616 Beaum. & Fl. Scornf. Lady iii. i, You, tender sir, whose gentle blood..makes you snuff at all But three-piled people. 1690 Dryden Don Sebastian iii. ii, She has made my pious father a three-piled cuckold. |
▪ II. ˈthree-piled, a.2
[See piled ppl. a.2]
Consisting of three things piled one upon another; also fig. threefold.
| 1656 J. Harrington Oceana (1700) 59 As under Herod, Pilat, and Tiberius, a threepil'd Tyranny. 1661 Cowley Disc. Cromwell Wks. 1710 II. 637 The Son of Earth,..Upon his three-pil'd Mountain stands, 'Till Thunder strikes him. 1908 Daily Chron. 21 Nov. 9/5 The work under the mark of the three piled arms of the B.S.A. Co. |