buy up

present singular third person buys up · participle present buying up · participle past bought up · past bought up

1. idiomatictransitiveTo buy the whole of; to purchase the entire stock of something.

   The marshland was bought up by a housing company.

   1 more example

   And when Zootopia needs to expand, rich landowners like the feline Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn) are more than happy to buy up these neighborhoods, displace the animals that live there, and erase their history in the process.

   2025 November 25, Caroline Siede, “Zootopia 2 is a stagnant sequel with one stellar subplot”, in AV Club

2. idiomatictransitiveTo buy whatever is available of something.

   1 more example

   According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

   2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55

3. idiomatictransitiveTo buy off; to pay in blackmail money or similar.

   Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap.

   1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC