TO PILE UP (or ON) THE AGONY, verbal phr. (common).—To exaggerate; to use the tallest terms in lieu of the simplest; to cry ‘Hell!’ when all you mean is ‘Goodness gracious!’: as a newspaper when ‘writing up’ murder, divorce, and other sensations. Also TO AGONIZE. Hence AGONY-PILER (theatrical) = a player in sensational parts. See AGONY-COLUMN.
1857. C. BRONTË [GASKELL’S Life, xxv.]. I doubt whether the regular novel-reader will consider the ‘AGONY PILED sufficiently high’ … or the colours dashed on to the canvas with the proper amount of daring.
1865. Athenæum, 1966, 26. 2. Everyone who has no real fancy seems AGONIZING after originality.
1871. G. MACDONALD, Wilfred Combermeade, I. xv. I might AGONIZE in words for a day and I should not express the delight …
1881. W. BLACK, The Beautiful Wretch, vi. Sooner or later that organ will shake the Cathedral to bits … there was a great deal too much noise. You lose effect when you PILE UP THE AGONY like that.
1903. Pall Mall Gazette, 20 April, 6. 3. Mirbeau has made the one mistake he always makes, that—in the language of the gallery gods—of PILING UP THE AGONY too much.
