bid-up

[ bid-uhp ]

noun
  1. the act or an instance of increasing the price of something by forcing the bidding upward.

  2. the amount of such increase: a bid-up of 100 percent in the last year.

Origin of bid-up

1
First recorded in 1860–65; noun use of verb phrase bid up

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use bid-up in a sentence

  • Now, folks, bid up fast and talk loud when you bid so I can hear you.

    Patchwork | Anna Balmer Myers
  • All the best points have been sold, and real estate on the Ristigouche has been bid up to an absurd figure.

    Little Rivers | Henry van Dyke
  • They let their own artists starve—they make them come over here—while they bid up a Raphael like a block of shares.

    Read-Aloud Plays | Horace Holley
  • "That fellow to the south seems to have decided to bid up for the Savannah River entrance on the next tack, sir," I reported.

    Wide Courses | James Brendan Connolly
  • McGinity would bid up to whatever he thought the proposition worth, and not a dollar more.

    The Land of Strong Men | Arthur M. Chisholm

British Dictionary definitions for bid up

bid up

verb
  1. (adverb) to increase the market price of (a commodity) by making artificial bids

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with bid-up

bid-up

Raise a price by raising one's offer, as in We were hoping to get an Oriental rug cheaply, but the dealer kept bidding us up. This phrase is used in business and commerce, particularly at auctions. [Mid-1800s]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.