1371. Chaucer, Boke of the Duchesse, iii., 295 (1888, Minor Poems, Skeat, p. 23). Of smale foules a gret hepe.
1383. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, i., 23/575 (Riverside Press). The wisdom of an heepe of lerned men.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxxv. I sha’n’t see her again, and she wont hear of me for I don’t know how long; and she will be meeting heaps of men.
1885. Punch, 4 July, p. 4. ‘Splendid sight,’ he goes on, ‘heaps of people—people you don’t see anywhere else—and lots of pretty girls.’
1888. Texas Siftings, 20 Oct. He did not encroach on the domain of familiarity, but he looked a heap.
1892. Gunter, Miss Dividends, xi. Every one here would do a heap for Bishop Tranyon’s darter.
Adv. (American).—A great deal.
1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 223. He pronounced himself a heap better.
All of a heap, phr. (old: now colloquial).—Astonished; confused; taken aback; flabbergast (q.v.); and (pugilists’) ‘doubled up.’
1593. Shakspeare, Titus Andronicus, ii., 4. Lord Bassianus lies embrewed here, all on a heap.