do up

present singular third person does up · participle present doing up · past did up · participle past done up

1. idiomatictransitiveTo fasten (a piece of clothing, etc.); to tighten (a nut etc.)

   Help me do up this zipper.

   2 more examples

   I can't do up my shirt. The button is missing.

   You hold it in place while I do up the nut.

   Antonyms: undo

2. colloquialidiomatictransitiveTo redecorate (a room, etc.); to make improvements to (a home or domestic property).

   I'm going to do up the living room next.

   4 more examples

   Near-synonyms: fix up, spruce up, vamp up

   They've done up the house so that they can sell it more easily.

   If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds, — because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands.

   1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle

   So many people were doing up their apartments that supplies of high-grade fixtures and fittings were at a premium.

   2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3

   Synonyms: fix up, spruce up, vamp up

3. idiomaticinformaltransitiveTo execute a task or performance; to execute it well.

   This time I'm going to do it up right.

   1 more example

   Previously they had cut corners on the dinner menu, but this time they really did it up.

4. idiomatictransitiveTo pack together and envelop; to pack up, tie up, or both.

   I did up the parcel with string and took it to the post office.

5. datedtransitiveTo accomplish thoroughly.
6. archaictransitiveTo starch and iron.

   a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 20, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

7. slangTo beat up; to physically assault.
8. transitiveTo style (someone's hair); (especially) to give someone (i.e., oneself or another) an updo.