pile-up

pile-up

See also: pile up and pileup

English

Alternative forms

• pileup, pile up

Etymology

From the verb phrase pile up.

Noun

pile-up (plural pile-ups)

1. (colloquial) A pile, a group of people or things which have piled up on one another, especially
   1. A pile of crashed vehicles due to a traffic accident.

      Traffic was backed up for miles due to a twelve-car pile-up on the freeway earlier today.

      • 2020 August 29, Jeremy Whittle, “Alexander Kristoff takes Tour de France yellow jersey after day of crashe”, in The Guardian‎:

        Pinot was among those involved in the huge pile-up just as the race entered the final three kilometres. Grazes were visible under his torn clothing as he pedalled, with a face like thunder, to the finish line.

   2. (American football) A pile of tackling players.
2. An accumulation that occurs over time, especially one which is not welcome.
   • 2001, Gavriel Salvendy, Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management, →ISBN:

     If the supervisor deals with daily workload in an orderly way and does not put pressure on the employee about a pile-up of work, then the employee's perception of pressure will be reduced and the employee will not suffer from work pressure stress.

   • 2002, Carl-Mikael Zetterling, Process Technology for Silicon Carbide Devices, →ISBN, page 107:

     Evidently, the annealing in NO ambient results in a pile-up of nitrogen at the oxide/SiC interface and this results in a reduction of interface states near the conduction band edge of 4H-SiC [16,30,31].

   • 2004, G. Molnar, Handbook of Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis: With Neutron Beams, →ISBN:

     Cusp-like trapezoidal shaping functions have been shown to produce the best signal-to-noise ratio and still maintain short duration to avoid pile-up of events.

   • 2014, Hamilton I Mc Cubbin, Marvin B Sussman, Social Stress and the Family, →ISBN:

     Because family crises evolve and are resolved over a period of time, families seldom are dealing with a single stressor, but rather, our longitudinal data suggest they experience a pile-up of stressors and strains (i.e., demands), particularly in the aftermath of a major stressor, such as a death, a major role change for one member, or a natural disaster.

Synonyms

• (American football): See dogpile

Translations

pile of crashed cars

Bulgarian: верижна катастрофа f (verižna katastrofa) Chinese: Mandarin: 連環車禍／连环车祸 (liánhuán chēhuò) Finnish: ketjukolari (fi) French: carambolage (fr) m German: Karambolage (de) f; (with five or more vehicles often) Massenkarambolage (de) f Greek: καραμπόλα (el) f (karampóla) Hungarian: tömegkarambol Italian: tamponamento (it) m Japanese: 玉突き (tamatsuki) Polish: karambol (pl) m Portuguese: engavetamento (pt) m Russian: столкнове́ние (ru) n (stolknovénije) Slovak: reťazová nehoda Spanish: choque múltiple m Tagalog: karambola

pile of tackling players

Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: pelaajakasa French: mêlée (fr) f

accumulation that occurs over time

Bulgarian: натрупване (bg) n (natrupvane) Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Finnish: kasaantuminen, kasautuminen, kasautuma, kasauma French: accumulation (fr) f, amoncellement (fr) m

Anagrams

• luppie, uppile