La pile vs la batterie

Question

La pile and la batterie are both translations for a battery. Is the distinction that la batterie can be charged and is built-in to devices like a cell phone, and la pile is the round object that's used, for example, in a flashlight. It can not be charged, and needs to be replaced when it dies.

Cécile Janty-Davies · Accepted Answer

Hi Tom,
In France, the word 'pile' is used to describe the small items you buy usually in multiples that you can recharge or recycle.
In a car, you will have 'une batterie' and surprisingly the same for a computer but the small round battery in a computer would be 'une pile'.
Take a look at the following page which I found particularly informative -
https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/17132/pile-ou-batterie
Hope this helps!

Chris Wirt · Answer

Both can mean battery (I'm not sure if there's a distinction between rechargable ones and ordinary ones). But la batterie is also drums and an array of stuff (a battery of games = a ton of games). La pile is also a heap or pile.