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.
But data from last month showed apparel makers appeared to relent, as costs from the Iran war and the U.S.-led trade war pile up.
From MarketWatch • May 12, 2026
There’s a reason black beans tend to pile up in the pantry.
From Salon • May 5, 2026
To truly expand their place on the map, though, the Greens would love not just to pile up the number of seats but to take control of individual councils in London.
From BBC • May 2, 2026
But if tickets pile up, violators risk getting their vehicles booted by security, leaving them the shame of having to ask a manager to call and get their tires released.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 25, 2026
There she had arranged her headquarters and begun to pile up all the things she was preparing for her daughter’s arrival.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
