pileup
Definition
Noun: 1. A traffic accident involving multiple vehicles, typically in a chain reaction: A "pileup" is a serious road accident where several vehicles crash into each other, often one after another, usually on a highway or in poor visibility conditions. 2. An accumulation or large quantity of things: Informally, "pileup" can describe a large, often messy, heap or backlog of items or tasks.
Usage Examples
- Noun (Traffic Accident):
- The heavy fog caused a major pileup on the interstate, involving over twenty cars.
- Emergency services rushed to the scene of the multi-vehicle pileup.
- Noun (Accumulation):
- I have a pileup of paperwork on my desk that I need to sort through.
- There's a pileup of dirty dishes in the sink.
Advanced Usage
- "to cause a pileup": To be the reason a multi-vehicle accident occurs.
- The sudden stop by the truck driver caused a pileup behind him.
- "a pileup of work": A large, accumulated amount of work.
- After my vacation, I returned to a pileup of emails and reports.
Variants and Related Words
- Pile up (phrasal verb): To accumulate or gather into a heap.
- Snow began to pile up on the roads.
- Pile-up (noun): An alternative hyphenated spelling of "pileup".
Synonyms
- Multi-car accident / Multi-vehicle collision: More formal terms for a traffic pileup.
- Chain-reaction crash: Specifically describes an accident where each collision causes the next.
- Accumulation / Backlog / Heap: Synonyms for the informal meaning of a large quantity.
Related Phrasal Verbs
- Pile up: (As a verb) To accumulate.
- Problems started to pile up after the system failure.
Related Idioms
- It's piling up: An informal expression meaning tasks or problems are accumulating quickly.
- I can't take a break; the work is just piling up.
Noun
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multiple collisions of vehicles
