dogpile

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noun

dog·​pile ˈdȯg-ˌpī(-ə)l 

variants or dog pile or dog-pile

plural dogpiles or dog piles or dog-piles

1

: a mass of people who have piled on top of one another (as in celebrating a sports victory or while fighting)

… baseball teams celebrated with a dogpile—a heap of flailing arms, legs and gloves.

—Jami Frankenberry

Another video shows students swinging at each other, and at the bottom of the dogpile is a female teacher.

—Peyton Yager

Greg Anthony … exchanged words with Johnson and punched him in the face. Those two went to the floor with a dogpile on top of them.

—Zach Buckley

also : the act or an instance of forming a dogpile

When Sterling's reserves ran out the clock, the starters left the bench for a dog pile at mid-court. Later they doused Rowland with a celebratory water-bottle shower.

—Todd Fertig

2

: a barrage of criticism, insults, etc. directed at someone or something by many people

Sanders … recovered his footing after being surprised by the debate's first dogpile, over his non-Democratic voting record on guns.

—Dallas Morning News

Other tweets … added to the dogpile of mockery and memes.

—Lisa Suhay

dogpile

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verb

variants or less commonly dog-pile

dogpiled also dog-piled; dogpiling also dog-piling; dogpiles also dog-piles

1

transitive + intransitive : to form a dogpile around someone especially as part of a fight or celebration

Paga seems like a guy who had a passel of brothers at home, dogpiling and throwing each other across the room.

—Tim Keown

Florida dog-piled after it won the Southeastern Conference …

—Dirk Chatelain

He then collapsed to his knees and his team dogpiled him on the court.

—David Rice

2

transitive + intransitive of a group of people : to direct a barrage of criticism, insults, etc. at (someone or something)

Then, when [Tucker] Carlson suggested the U.S. military should be more focused on fighting, DOD brass dogpiled him.

—Anders Hagstrom

—often used with on

When the sci-fi teen romance … hit theaters back in February, critics dogpiled on it for being a flashy, derivative mess …

—Chris Nashawaty

We hate to dogpile on the Huskies, but Northeastern's 77-0 loss at UMass Saturday ranked as the most lopsided in the country that day.

—Michael Vega

Examples of dogpile in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

At that point the fleeing person was under a dogpile about 10 feet away. —Heather Hollingsworth, arkansasonline.com, 16 Feb. 2024

She got stuck at the bottom of the dogpile as her legs seized up from cramps. —Thuc Nhi Nguyen, Los Angeles Times, 15 Jan. 2024

Confirming that those hardest hit were at the top of the financial dogpile was the fact that wealth inequality also fell over the same time. —Paolo Confino, Fortune, 15 Aug. 2023

Then came the dogpile, the gloves thrown in the air and some gold medals that may now have bite marks. —Shawn McFarland, Dallas News, 11 June 2023

Making the result more unpleasant: watching Calabasas dogpile in front of the mound on Santana’s home field. —Don Norcross, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 June 2023

When the game ended, the Dodgers ran out onto the field to celebrate, but there was no dogpile, and Turner was isolated in a doctor’s office in the spacious clubhouse. —Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY, 28 Oct. 2020

While a celebration nearly 70 years in the making was underway with hollering fans and a dogpile of Wake Forest players partying near the mound, the 2023 Alabama baseball team huddled together for the last time on a field. —Nick Alvarez | [e-mail], al, 11 June 2023

Advertisement After the actor had been hounded for half a week by tsk-tskers, the famously combative animal rights organization PETA joined the dogpile. —Samantha Chery, Washington Post, 8 June 2023

Verb

Kentucky’s players dogpiled between first and second base. —Ryan Black, The Courier-Journal, 6 June 2023

The real action begins when there's only one silver ball left, and all the remaining guys dogpile on top of each other to fight for it. —Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 7 Oct. 2021

A couple dozen Longhorns tried to dogpile a smiling Hodo. —Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 18 June 2021

The Giants can’t dogpile on a guy between first and second, and the A’s can’t give anyone a Gatorade shower or pie in the face. —John Shea, SFChronicle.com, 24 June 2020

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

1921, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

circa 1947, in the meaning defined at sense 1