fess up

present singular third person fesses up · participle present fessing up · participle past fessed up · past fessed up · alternative 'fess up

1. colloquialintransitiveTo confess to something; to admit something.

   "‛Fess up," she persisted. "Have you boys been quarreling again?"

   1918, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 26, in The Winds of Chance

   2 more examples

   And you know, one of the things that I hope is that the American people will find when we make a mistake, we're willing to 'fess up to it and change.

   2008 December 18, Barack Obama, President-elect press conference

   “I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was happening in the financial industry, and I came to the conclusion that people weren’t fessing up,” he said.

   2009 February 26, Roy Furchgott, “You’ve Sold Your Stocks. Now What?”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022

   Synonyms: own up