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Showing results for stop up. Search instead for Stop gap.
Synonyms

stop up

Idioms  

  1. Fill a hole or gap, block an opening or passage. For example, We need to stop up the chinks in the walls, or The sink is stopped up; it won't drain. This idiom was at first put simply as stop, the adverb up being added only in the early 1700s.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Greed also causes overleveraging: You keep adding to a winning position without moving your stop up to protect profits, then suddenly bad news hits, and what was your biggest winner yesterday wipes you out today.

From MarketWatch • Jan. 28, 2026

"I now put the food away when I go to bed, but in the morning I've found the towel I've used to stop up the gap is pulled out and chewed too."

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2023

And so we let crickets be crickets and I stop up my ears.

From Slate • Feb. 26, 2022

But you can’t let your fear and anger stop up your ears.

From Fox News • Aug. 27, 2020

It was because you wadded up your underdrawers to stop up the flue on the stove and smoke out the schoolhouse.

From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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