pile up
Britishverb
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to gather or be gathered in a pile; accumulate
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informal to crash or cause to crash
noun
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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]
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Be involved in a crash, as in When the police arrived, at least four cars had piled up . [Late 1800s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Even as new signs of economic strain pile up, Federal Reserve officials are sticking to an upbeat forecast for growth, and they’re pointing to artificial intelligence to explain why.
From Barron's
Even as new signs of economic strain pile up, Federal Reserve officials are sticking to an upbeat forecast for growth, and they’re pointing to artificial intelligence to explain why.
From Barron's
Hail piles up into ice drifts, growing from pellets to Ping-Pong balls.
From Literature
Three weekends in a row helping Dad was enough for me, especially given the amount of homework I had piling up.
From Literature
It was during that tenure—as Gonzaga piled up 15 conference titles and a pair of Final Four appearances—that Lloyd learned the value of consistency.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
