do up
Britishverb
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to wrap and make into a bundle
to do up a parcel
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to cause the downfall of (a person)
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to beautify or adorn
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(also intr) to fasten or be fastened
this skirt does up at the back
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informal to renovate or redecorate
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slang to assault
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Fasten up or put up; also, dress up. For example, Let's do up all the gifts in matching paper , or Please help me do up the collar button , or Jane did up her hair for the dance , or The children were all done up in their best outfits . [c. 1800]
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. Do something thoroughly or very well, as in They really did it up brown for the dinner party . The allusion here is unclear, but it may be to wrapping a package in brown paper. [Mid-1800s]
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.
She didn’t say it before, so I guess it wasn’t done up until that very moment.
From Los Angeles Times
And on Friday, one subcontractor told the BBC his firm would do up to 15 drop-offs daily from a hotel in south east London to a doctors surgery around two miles away.
From BBC
“Well, well, well—the wolf children and their governess. What are you doing up here, then? Other than pelting me with nuts, I mean?”
From Literature
Principal characters like Ventimiglia will typically do up to 120 poses — all to make sure the nuances of someone’s face are captured.
From Los Angeles Times
Everything he had been doing up to that point had a song in it.
From Los Angeles Times
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.