file

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Any of several hardened steel tools with cutting ridges for forming, smoothing, or reducing especially metallic surfaces.
• noun A nail file.
• noun Chiefly British A crafty or artful person.
• transitive verb To smooth, reduce, or remove with or as if with a file.
• noun A container, such as a cabinet or folder, for keeping papers in order.
• noun A collection of papers or published materials kept or arranged in convenient order.
• noun Computers A collection of data or program records stored as a unit with a single name.
• noun A line of persons, animals, or things positioned one behind the other.
• noun A line of troops or military vehicles so positioned.
• noun Games Any of the rows of squares that run forward and backward between players on a playing board in chess or checkers.
• noun Archaic A list or roll.
• intransitive verb To put or keep (papers, for example) in useful order for storage or reference.
• intransitive verb To enter (a legal document) as an official record.
• intransitive verb To send or submit (copy) to a newspaper.
• intransitive verb To initiate (a lawsuit).
• intransitive verb To march or walk in a line.
• intransitive verb To put items in a file.
• intransitive verb To make application; apply.
• intransitive verb To enter one's name in a political contest.
• idiom (on file) In or as if in a file for easy reference.
• transitive verb To sully or defile.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To rub or cut with a file, or as if with a file; render smooth, sharp, even, etc., by rubbing with a file; remove with a file: as, to file a saw; to file off a tooth.
• Figuratively, to smooth; polish; correct; improve.
• To defile; pollute; contaminate; degrade.
• To place or fasten on a file; fasten, as papers, on a line or wire, for preservation; hence, to arrange in order, or insert in a bundle, as papers; arrange in a given order; classify.
• Specifically To place in due manner, as a document, among the records of a court or a public office.
• To receive, or receive and indorse, as a document so placed.
• To march in a file or line, as soldiers, not abreast, but one after another.
• noun A metal (usually steel) tool, having a rectangular, triangular, round, or irregular section, and either tapering or of uniform width and thickness, covered on one or more of its surfaces with teeth or transverse or oblique ridges, used for abrading, reducing, or smoothing metal, ivory, wood, or other resistant materials. See phrases below.
• noun Figuratively, any means employed to refine or polish something, as literary style.
• noun In entomology, a surface covered with fine parallel ridges, on which another surface can be rubbed, producing the sound called stridulation. These organs are found on various parts of the body, as the wings, thorax, and abdomen.
• noun The rough spines of a sea-urchin, as a cidarid.
• noun A thread, string, or line; particularly, a line or wire on which papers are strung in due order for preservation and reference.
• noun The whole number of papers thus arranged; hence, a collection of papers arranged according to date or subject for the sake of ready reference; also, a bundle of papers tied together with the title of each indorsed: as, a file of newspapers; a file of writs.
• noun A roll, list, or catalogue.
• noun A docket; a calendar.
• noun A row of persons or things arranged one behind another; military, a row of soldiers forming a line from front to rear; the number of men constituting the depth of a battalion or squadron.
• noun Regular succession of thought or narration; uniform tenor; thread of discourse.
• noun One of the lines of squares on a chess-board running directly from player to player: opposed to rank. See chess.
• noun Same as rank and file. See phrase below.
• noun In some parts of the United States, a cloth used in cleaning or wiping a floor. Also file-cloth.
• noun In heraldry, same as label.
• noun Hence— The general body of any party or society, as distinguished from the leaders.
• Vile.
• noun A wretch; a villain: a vague term of abuse.
• noun A pickpocket; a thief.
• noun [See etym.] A hard, cunning person; a shrewd person; a deep or artful man: as, a sly old file.
• noun An individual soldier.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To set in order; to arrange, or lay away, esp. as papers in a methodical manner for preservation and reverence; to place on file; to insert in its proper place in an arranged body of papers.