dogpile

English

Etymology

From dog + pile, from analogy with a group of dogs sleeping in a pile.

Noun

dogpile (plural dogpiles)

1. A mound of people, especially people who are fighting or celebrating.
   • 1977, Billy Knott and James Tate, Lucky Darryl^[1], ISBN 0913722103, page 7:

     The crowd lept into a wrestling dogpile, each trying to grab as many of the black slips as possible.

2. Any indiscriminate jumble of things.
   • 1993, Christopher G. Jones, “Object-Oriented Analysis with CASE”, in Computer-aided Software Engineering^[2], ISBN 1878289152, page 348:

     Unscrambling the dogpile of objects can be messy.

Verb

dogpile (third-person singular simple present dogpiles, present participle dogpiling, simple past and past participle dogpiled)

1. To jump on top of someone, usually in a group.
   • 2003, Nancy Holder, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen^[3], ISBN 0743487923, page 657:

     A vampire got her around the neck from behind; then more, dogpiling her.

2. To pile on or overwhelm, such as with criticism or praise.
   • 2005, Craig Spector, Underground^[4], ISBN 0765306603, page 169:

     But this guy was serious, using online payment services and dogpiling her e-mail box within minutes, requesting expedited shipping.