pile on

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See also: pile-on

English

Pronunciation

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To jump on top of someone or something quickly.
    • 2006, Steven M. Hallock, Editorial and Opinion: The Dwindling Marketplace of Ideas in Today's News, Praeger, →ISBN, page 69:
      As football linebackers pile on a quarterback in a blitz, the newspaper editorialist heaped sarcasm onto the president.
    • 2009, Human Kinetics with Thomas Hanlon, The Sports Rules Book - 3rd Edition, Human Kinetics, →ISBN, page 116:
      Piling on: Players may not pile on a runner after the ball is dead or intentionally fall upon any prostrate player.
    • 2011, Michael Harston, The Show: The Michael Thomas Story, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 21:
      The quarterback turns and hands the ball to his fullback just as Sumo hits him in the backfield causing a fumble. Ball loose, ball loose screamed Jones. There is a mad scramble for the loose ball as bodies pile on top of each other.
  2. (transitive, intransitive, figurative) To criticize someone or something in a concerted effort; to add on some additional critique.
    OK, OK, they've already gotten the constructive criticism. Now you're just piling on.
    • 2015 May 20, Luke Holland, “Piling on Nickelback is old hat. Can't we all just move on already?”, in The Guardian‎:
      Piling on Nickelback is old hat. Can't we all just move on already? Chad Kroeger and his band are still the group everyone loves to hate, but after the Queensland police put out a wanted poster for them for ‘crimes against music’ Luke Holland asks: has the hating gone too far?
    • 2020 December 31, Alexis Carey, “'Worst ever': Melania Trump's legacy brutally mocked”, in NZ Herald‎:
      The hashtag #WorstFlotusEver has started to take off on Twitter, with critics piling on the former model by listing their many grievances and mocking her achievements over the past four years.
  3. (intransitive, figurative, sports) To unnecessarily extend the margin of a winning score.
  4. (transitive, informal) To add or apply in great quantities.

Derived terms

Noun

pile on (plural pile ons)

  1. Nonstandard spelling of pile-on.

See also

Anagrams

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