dogpile
UK/ˈdɒɡ pʌɪl//ˈdɔɡ ˌpaɪl/
dogpile noun: a disorderly pile of people formed by jumping upon a victim.
Noun
dogpile (plural dogpiles)
- A disorderly pile of people formed by jumping upon a victim.
- The bottom man of a 'dog pile' in a fraternity house scuffle is in a hospital with a neck dislocation.1948 November 21, Los Angeles Times, Sect. i, p. 20
- Any similarly disorderly pile of people or things.
- Purdy tucked the pigskin under his elbow and cantered over a dog-pile for a tally.1921 November 19, The Nebraska State Journal, page 3
- Unscrambling the dogpile of objects can be messy.1993, Christopher G. Jones, “Object-Oriented Analysis with CASE”, in Computer-aided Software Engineering, →ISBN, page 348
- A pile of dog excrement.
- Mrs. Brown cleaned her lawn up bright and early each day;
Picked up all the dog piles so her children could play.1950 March 6, The Tri-City Herald, page 6
- Synonyms:
- dogshit
- Mrs. Brown cleaned her lawn up bright and early each day;
- The situation where many participants attack the same user (on a discussion forum or similar).
- A cache stampede.
Verb
dogpile (third-person singular simple present dogpiles, present participle dogpiling, simple past and past participle dogpiled)
- To jump into a dogpile.
- He can either take a beating from one man or... be dogpiled by a dozen men.c. 1947, Tamotsu Shibutani, The Derelicts of Company K, page 273
- I fumbled the snap, fell on the ball and about 10 guys dog-piled on top of me.1989 September 7, The Los Angeles Times, Sect. ix, p. 16
- To pile on, to overwhelm in other senses.
- For many participants to attack the same user (on a discussion forum or similar).
- But this guy was serious, using online payment services and dogpiling her e-mail box within minutes, requesting expedited shipping.2005, Craig Spector, Underground, →ISBN, page 169
Synonyms of dogpile
Forms of dogpile
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dogpiles |
| alternative form | dog pile |
| alternative form | dog-pile |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dogpiles |
| present participle | dogpiling |
| past participle | dogpiled |
| past | dogpiled |
Origin of dogpile
From dog + pile. In reference to piles of people, originally as a noun after earlier pig pile. In reference to dog excrement, a clipping of pile of shit.
Words formed from dogpile
Questions about dogpile
- What does dogpile mean?
- Dogpile means a disorderly pile of people formed by jumping upon a victim.
- What part of speech is dogpile?
- Dogpile can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce dogpile?
- Dogpile is pronounced /ˈdɒɡ pʌɪl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dogpile?
- The plural of dogpile is dogpiles.
Words near dogpile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dogpile (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dogpile.wav.
Cite this entry: “dogpile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dogpile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.