close up

present singular third person closes up · participle present closing up · participle past closed up · past closed up

1. intransitiveTo close (remove a gap) completely or fully.

   Some flowers close up at night to stay protected from the cold.

2. intransitiveTo move nearer together so that a gap is removed.

   The crowd closed up and I couldn't get through to the train.

3. transitiveTo enclose, confine.

   In Sanʿa the Jews have been separated from the Mohammedan population for the last three hundred years, and closed up in a Ghetto apart from the main town.

   1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 369

4. ambitransitiveTo shut a building or a business for a period of time.

   The car factory has closed up for the August holidays.

   1 more example

   We finally managed to close up the shop for the night at about 10 o'clock.

   Synonyms: close

5. intransitiveOf a cut or other wound: To heal.

   With stitches, the cut should close up in a week to ten days.

6. intransitiveTo become less 'open' or communicative; to shrink back.

   to close up emotionally

7. AustraliaintransitiveslangTo stop talking.