bung up

present singular third person bungs up · participle present bunging up · participle past bunged up · past bunged up

1. New ZealandUKTo close (an opening) with a cork, cork-like object or other improvised obstruction.

   He used a piece of putty to temporarily bung up the leaking gutter.

   1 more example

   The holes in the sky by which the upper waters escaped were made by God when he removed two stars out of the constellation of the Pleiades; and in order to stop this torrent of rain God had afterwards to bung up the two holes with a couple of stars borrowed from the constellation of the Bear.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 144

2. New ZealandUKTo block or obstruct (an opening or passage).

   By dose is bunged up with snot!

   1 more example

   The fallen leaves were bunging up the drain.

3. obsoleteslangTo use up, as by bruising or overexertion; to exhaust or incapacitate for action.

   He had bunged up his mouth that he should not have spoken these three years.

   1612, Thomas Shelton (translator), he History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha (originally by Miguel de Cervantes)

   1 more example

   Bunged up he was, plenty. A scar on his nose, healed up, but showing the marks of where human teeth had bit him in a fight, as neat and clear as a dentist’s signboard.

   1930, Edna Ferber, Cimarron, page 20