fold up

British  

verb

1. (tr) to make smaller or more compact

2. (intr) to collapse, as with laughter or pain

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fold up Idioms  

1. Fail, especially go out of business. For example, Three stores on Main Street have folded up .

2. Collapse, break down. For example, When she told him about the dog's death, she folded up . This idiom alludes to closing or bringing an object into more compact form. [Early 1900s]

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Example Sentences

The studios would rent for about $1,500 a month and weren’t that small, he said, given modular furniture—beds that fold up, closets that pop out.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026

The Bicycle Association, which represents firms who make and sell standard and fold up bikes, said it was helping its members to respond to the new rules.

From BBC • Feb. 7, 2025

“When I’m at a restaurant, I will fold up the chopstick wrapper and build a little fort with the plates and chopsticks and, like, make stuff in my hands,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 5, 2024

But if that happens just in time for the genre to fold up for good, what was the point of all this frustration?

From Salon • Feb. 4, 2024

“Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!”

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Related Words

• collapse
• crash
• decline
• decrease
• depreciate
• diminish
• dip
• dive
• dwindle
• ease
• go down
• land
• plummet
• plunge
• settle
• sink
• slip
• slump
• stumble
• tumble