pile up

See also pileup, and pile-up

English

Verb

pile up (third-person singular simple present piles up, present participle piling up, simple past and past participle piled up)

1. (transitive) To form a pile, stack, or heap.

   The kids piled up their boots and coats by the back door.

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     And still the hours passed, and at last I knew by the glimmer of light in the tomb above that the sun had risen again, and a maddening thirst had hold of me. And then I thought of all the barrels piled up in the vault and of the liquor that they held; and stuck not because 'twas spirit, for I would scarce have paused to sate that thirst even with molten lead.

2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To collect or accumulate, as a backlog.

   The requests piled up while she was away.

Synonyms

• (form a pile): heap up
• (accumulate): head up

Translations

to form a pile etc.

• Dutch: stapelen (nl)
• Esperanto: amasigi (eo)
• Finnish: kasata (fi) (transitive), kasautua (fi) (intransitive)

• French: amonceler (fr), empiler (fr)
• Spanish: acumular (es), arrumar (es), apilar (es)

idiomatic: to accumulate

• Finnish: kasautua (fi)
• French: s'amonceler (fr)

• Spanish: amontonarse (es)

Related terms

• pile-up

Anagrams

• uppile