Idiom idiom
pile up
Meaning
To collect or accumulate, as a backlog.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Work is starting to pile up on my desk.”
“If you do not wash the dishes every day, they will pile up in the sink.”
“As the deadline approached, the unanswered emails continued to pile up, causing him significant stress and forcing him to work late into the night.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026