pile-up
(Informal)
[noun]
Synonyms: collision, accident, crash, multiple collision, smash, smash-up (informal)

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English Thesaurus: accident, crash, collision, a head-on collision, disaster, ...

[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲

pile up phrasal verb (see also pile)

1. to increase in quantity or amount, in a way that is difficult to manage:
It wasn’t long before the debts were piling up.
The traffic starts piling up around this time.
The work has a tendency to pile up if I’m not careful.

2. pile something ↔ up to arrange things in a pile:
tiny doughnuts piled up in a dish
⇒ pile-up

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

ˈpile-up noun [countable]
a traffic accident involving many vehicles:
a motorway pile-up

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

pile up
noun
ADJ. multiple a multiple pile-up involving a minibus and five cars
eight-vehicle, five-car, etc. | motorway PILE-UP + VERB involve sth | happen, occur
PREP. in a/the ~ A young man died in a pile-up on the M1 last night.

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

accident an event in which a vehicle is damaged and often someone is hurt:
Her father died in a car accident.
Hugh had an accident on his way to work.
crash a serious accident in which a vehicle hits something else:
Rees-Jones was the only person to survive the crash.
a car/plane/train crash
He was killed in a plane crash.
collision an accident in which two or more cars, trains etc hit each other:
His car was involved in a collision with a train.
⇒ a head-on collision (=between vehicles that are driving towards each other):
The actor was killed in a head-on collision while driving his new sports car.
disaster a serious accident involving a train, plane, or boat, in which a lot of people are killed or injured:
It was Britain’s worst air disaster.
wreck American English an accident in which a car or train is badly damaged:
Ben nearly died in a car wreck.
pile-up an accident that involves several cars or trucks:
The pile-up happened in thick fog.
There was a 12-car pile-up on the motorway.
fender-bender American English informal
, prang British English informal a car accident in which little damage is done:
Atkinson was involved in a fender-bender in the hotel parking lot.
At 15, he borrowed his parents’ car and had a prang.

[TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲

destroy to damage something so badly that it no longer exists or cannot be used or repaired:
The earthquake almost completely destroyed the city.
The twin towers were destroyed in a terrorist attack.
devastate to damage a large area very badly and destroy many things in it:
Allied bombings in 1943 devastated the city.
The country’s economy has been devastated by years of fighting.
demolish to completely destroy a building, either deliberately or by accident:
The original 15th century house was demolished in Victorian times.
The plane crashed into a suburb of Paris, demolishing several buildings.
flatten to destroy a building or town by knocking it down, bombing it etc, so that nothing is left standing:
The town centre was flattened by a 500 lb bomb.
wreck to deliberately damage something very badly, especially a room or building:
The toilets had been wrecked by vandals.
They just wrecked the place.
trash informal to deliberately destroy a lot of the things in a room, house etc:
Apparently, he trashed his hotel room while on drugs.
obliterate formal to destroy a place so completely that nothing remains:
The nuclear blast obliterated most of Hiroshima.
reduce something to ruins/rubble/ashes to destroy a building or town completely:
The town was reduced to rubble in the First World War.
ruin to spoil something completely, so that it cannot be used or enjoyed:
Fungus may ruin the crop.
The new houses will ruin the view.
accident an event in which a vehicle is damaged and often someone is hurt:
Her father died in a car accident.
Hugh had an accident on his way to work.
crash a serious accident in which a vehicle hits something else:
Rees-Jones was the only person to survive the crash.
a car/plane/train crash
He was killed in a plane crash.
collision an accident in which two or more cars, trains etc hit each other:
His car was involved in a collision with a train.
⇒ a head-on collision (=between vehicles that are driving towards each other):
The actor was killed in a head-on collision while driving his new sports car.
disaster a serious accident involving a train, plane, or boat, in which a lot of people are killed or injured:
It was Britain’s worst air disaster.
pile-up an accident that involves several cars or trucks:
The pile-up happened in thick fog.
There was a 12-car pile-up on the motorway.
fender-bender American English informal
, prang British English informal a car accident in which little damage is done:
Atkinson was involved in a fender-bender in the hotel parking lot.
At 15, he borrowed his parents’ car and had a prang.

[TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲

pile up
pile up (something)
to increase something.
Many civilians were killed — the evidence continues to pile up.

The company piled up hundreds of millions of dollars of losses over the last year.

Usage notes: usually used in passive forms:
Earnings began piling up from the sale of the new switches.

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲

pile up something
pile up (something)
to increase something.
Many civilians were killed — the evidence continues to pile up.

The company piled up hundreds of millions of dollars of losses over the last year.

Usage notes: usually used in passive forms:
Earnings began piling up from the sale of the new switches.

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲

pile up
to accumulate, to put things on top of each other
I piled up the magazines on top of the small table.

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲

pile up(1)
v. phr.
1. To grow into a big heap.
He didn't go into his office for three days and his work kept piling up.
2. To run aground.
Boats often pile up on the rocks in the shallow water.
3. To crash.
One car made a sudden stop and the two cars behind it piled up.

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲

pile-up(2)
n.
1. A heap; a deposit of one object on top of another.
There is a huge pile-up of junked cars in this vacant lot.
2. A large number of objects in the same place, said of traffic.
I was late because of the traffic pile-up on the highway.

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲