round up

British  

verb

1. to gather (animals, suspects, etc) together

   to round ponies up

2. to raise (a number) to the nearest whole number or ten, hundred, or thousand above it Compare round down

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noun

1. the act of gathering together livestock, esp cattle, so that they may be branded, counted, or sold

2. any similar act of collecting or bringing together

   a roundup of today's news

3. a collection of suspects or criminals by the police, esp in a raid

round up Idioms  

1. Collect or gather in a body, as in We'll have to round up some more volunteers for the food drive, or The police rounded up all the suspects. This term comes from the West, where since the mid-1800s it has been used for collecting livestock by riding around the herd and driving the animals together. By about 1875 it was extended to other kinds of gathering together.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

round up

Madrid deployed police and military forces to round up most migrants and escort them to the border with Morocco by Saturday evening.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026

Such missives resembled the way royal press officers would round up a day of engagements on a royal tour, except these were with language free of convention and formality.

From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2026

A core of Minneapolis activists is playing a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the federal agents deployed in force to the midwestern city to round up undocumented immigrants.

From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026

When she spots a hawk flying overhead, Davis calls for one of her two sons to be sure to round up the few chickens roaming around.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2026

Sherman went over to shoo them back to the road and then began to round up all the others.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

Related Words

• bring in
• bring together
• herd