pileup
or pile-up
a massive collision of several or many moving vehicles.
an accumulation, as of work, chores, or bills.
a rough or disorderly falling of people upon one another, as in a football game.
Origin of pileup
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use pileup in a sentence
Damning evidence began to pile up: video coverage, wiretapped conversations, a pair of wine-soaked jeans, a confession.
Brunello’s King Lear: Gianfranco Soldera Reflects on the Attack on His Wine | Alice Feiring | December 8, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTNonetheless, the accumulated costs of senseless mass shootings pile up, demanding our attention.
While not in any way true, a higher debt ceiling sounds like a green light to pile up more debt.
House Republican Hostage Takers Are Unfit to Govern | Jon Favreau | September 30, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAs the scandals pile up, the press keeps finding excuses for the president, writes Stuart Stevens.
A Bad Relationship: How the Press Came To Love Obama More Than Itself | Stuart Stevens | May 29, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTLike the obscure car crash that sparked the first intifada in 1987, the BetterPlace pile-up is more than a traffic accident.
Kerry's Gas Field Plan Won't Make Palestine a Better Place | Matthew Kalman | May 28, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
In winter they dig holes, and pile up the earth in heaps, like moles, at the mouths of the openings.
Still he struggled along and managed to pile up a good deal of copy in the course of weeks.
Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete | Albert Bigelow PaineAnnesley thought, ashamed because it was so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon another.
The Second Latchkey | Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel WilliamsonThen she began to pile up the dishes, but, after a few futile movements, sat down in a chair and cried again.
The Camerons of Highboro | Beth B. GilchristThe Ghost's jib and mainsail were set, and with the wind on her port quarter she began to pile up the foam under her bow.
Harper's Young People, June 21, 1881 | Various
British Dictionary definitions for pile up
to gather or be gathered in a pile; accumulate
informal to crash or cause to crash
informal a multiple collision of vehicles
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with pileup
Accumulate, as in The leaves piled up in the yard, or He piled up a huge fortune. In this idiom pile means “form a heap or mass of something.” [Mid-1800s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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