Haufen

Etymology
From a merger of,  , from  (more southern) and  (more northern), from  and its ablaut variant , respectively. With the former is cognate 🇨🇬, with the latter 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬.

Already in Middle High German the two forms began to influence each other such that the originally weak developed the strong byform, while the originally strong  developed the weak byform. In Modern Standard German the vowels -ū- and -ou- regularly coalesced into -au-, which completed the merger. The strong stem is preserved in.

Noun

 * 1) heap, hive, pile
 * 2) crowd, lot, group
 * 3)  feces, turd