[f. prec. + -ED2. Cf. PILED ppl. a.3 2.]

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  1.  = THREE-PILE. Also transf. of grass, Growing thickly with a soft surface like velvet.

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1603.  Shaks., Meas. for M., I. ii. 35. Thou art good veluet; thou’rt a three pild peece I warrant thee.

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1605.  Lond. Prodigal, I. i. 140. Sixe peeces of vellet…. a peece of Ash-colour, a three pilde blacke [etc.].

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1610.  Chester’s Tri. (Chetham Soc.), 41. Our verdant pastures three pil’d greene in graine.

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a. 1861.  Mrs. Browning, Nature’s Remorses, ii. On three-piled carpet of compliments.

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  2.  fig. Of the highest quality, refined, exquisite; also, of very great degree, excessive, extreme, intense (cf. threefold, treble, triple). ? Obs.

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1588.  Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 407. Taffata phrases, silken tearmes precise, Three-pil’d Hyperboles.

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a. 1616.  Beaum. & Fl., Scornf. Lady, III. i. You, tender sir, whose gentle blood … makes you snuff at all But three-piled people.

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1690.  Dryden, Don Sebastian, III. ii. She has made my pious father a three-piled cuckold.

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