noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The practice of an athlete progressively increasing the dosage of an illicit drug to a maximum, and then progressively lowering it, between competitions so as to reduce the chances of being caught. uncountable
2. 2
   a fraudulent business practice involving some form of pyramid scheme e.g., the chain of distribution is artificially expanded by an excessive number of distributors selling to other distributors at progressively higher wholesale prices until retail prices are unnecessarily inflated wordnet
3. 3
   A shell deformity in captive turtles, leading to a pyramid shape underlying each scute. uncountable
4. 4
   A form of tax evasion in which an employer that withholds payroll taxes from employees intentionally fails to remit those withholdings to the taxing authority, often then filing for bankruptcy to repeat the fraud under a new name. uncountable
5. 5
   Synonym of pyramid trading. uncountable

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of pyramid form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms

pyramid trading

Etymology

From pyramid + -ing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.