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What is "pile-up"

Crossword clues for pile-up

pile-up
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pile-up
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a motorway pile-up (=when several cars on a motorway crash into each other)
▪ a news report of a motorway pile-up on the M25
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a multiple pile-up involving a minibus and five cars
▪ Slick roads caused a six-car pile-up along Highway 30.
▪ The pile-up happened in thick fog and caused a seven-mile tailback on the motorway.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Beyond, a glimpse of carnage - the pile-up on the southbound lane resembled a scrap metal yard.
▪ But the sensational pile-up re-emphasised that any horse could win the National and revitalised public interest.
▪ In another accident two people were taken to hospital after a three-car pile-up on the A350, near Chippenham, in Wilts.
▪ Killed in a pile-up on the M25 on her way home from the airport.
▪ Later a 30-vehicle pile-up shut the M62 near Humberside.
▪ No wonder there were pile-ups on the autobahn.
▪ Or it could be just an old fashioned pile-up.
▪ Several people were injured in a 12-vehicle pile-up on the M25 near Wisley, Surrey.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pile-up

"multi-vehicle crash," 1929, from verbal phrase pile up, which is from 1849 as "accumulate," 1899 as "to wreck in a heap" (see pile (v.)).

Wiktionary
pile-up

n. (senseid en traffic accident)(context idiomatic colloquial English) A traffic accident or collision involving multiple vehicles.

Usage examples of "pile-up".

The roadnet braked the cars behind, but not fast enough to prevent a spectacular pile-up.

On the other hand Chawe wasn't likely to shoot him at this speed and risk the sudden loss of control and the inevitable pile-up.

There had been a pile-up on the island, a car and a van meeting head-on, an articulated lorry ploughing the wreckage up on to the concrete, flattening it, a body in the road.

There was one of those churning, drowning pile-ups at the penultimate jump.

Where the stones had fallen from the broken span, there were pile-ups of captured drift.

They surveyed the pile-ups in a knowledgeable, confidence-inspiring way, unrolled stretchers, and prepared to advance.

A sudden thunderstorm had been responsible for a motorway pile-up (no, the stupid bloody drivers were to blame for that, but right now that wasn't important), and as a result a vanload of poisonous snakes had crashed and the reptiles were on the loose.

But in the flesh he resembled a genetic pile-up between Struwwelpeter and Uriah Heep.