pack up

verb

1. to put (things) away in a proper or suitable place

2. informal,  to give up (an attempt) or stop doing (something)

   if you don't do your work better, you might as well pack up

3. (intr) (of an engine, machine, etc) to fail to operate; break down

4. engineering to use packing to adjust the height of a component or machine before it is secured in its correct position or alignment

Example Sentences

When the family decided to pack up, Mr Nash, as the eldest brother, had been put in charge of his siblings and told to go to the bathroom block.

Read more on BBC

Employees at KION-TV and Telemundo 23 in Salinas were told to pack up on Tuesday.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The partition of India in 1947 prompted the family to pack up and move to Karachi.

Read more on Barron's

As fighting neared, the family moved from place to place, settling each time in a flimsy tent only to be forced to pack up and flee again.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“Movements don’t pack up and go home,” the political analyst John Ellis observed in January.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• abandon 
• depart 
• desert 
• discharge 
• displace 
• expel 
• leave 
• move out 
• pull out 
• remove 
• vacate 
• withdraw