put up

Meanings

adjectiveput up (not comparable)

alternativenot comparableAlternative form of put-up.

verbput up (third-person singular simple present puts up, present participle putting up, simple past and past participle put up)

present singular third person puts up · participle present putting up

transitiveTo place in a high location.
Please put up your luggage in the overhead bins.
1 more example
Three volunteers put up their hands in response to the speaker's request.
transitiveTo hang; to mount.
Many people put up messages on their refrigerators.
transitiveTo style (the hair) up on the head, instead of letting it hang down.
Antonyms: let down
idiomatictransitiveTo cajole or dare (someone) to do (something).
I think someone put him up to it.
idiomatictransitiveTo store away.
Be sure to put up the tools when you finish.
1 more example
“As for your money,” replied Partridge, “I beg, sir, you will put it up; I will receive none of you at this time; for at present I am, I believe, the richer man of the two. […]
1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VIII
Synonyms: put away
idiomatictransitiveTo house; to shelter; to take in.
We can put you up for the night.
archaicintransitiveTo stay, to sojourn (at a hotel, inn, tavern, etc.)
Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner.
1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XIII, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 204
2 more examples
"Whereabouts are you putting up, Spuds?" asked Mr Cripps, when the curate was again seated on the edge of the rocking chair.
1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 10
For a week or ten days we put up in London at a smart, rather exclusive second- or third-class haunt of the decade's nobility and gentry—the Artillery Mansions.
1946, William Allen White, Autobiography, page 411
idiomatictransitiveTo present, especially in "put up a fight".
They didn't put up much resistance.
1 more example
That last fighter put up quite a fight.
transitiveTo endure; to put up with; to tolerate.
By gogs bloud my maiſters, we will not put vp this ſo quietly, […] VVele ſo deale of ourſelues as wele reuenge this villainy.
1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I
1 more example
Dionysius of Syracuse, in his exile, was made to stand without dore […]; he wisely put it up, and laid the fault where it was, on his own pride and scorn, which in his prosperity he had formerly showed others.
1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
transitiveTo provide funds in advance.
Butty Sugrue put up £300,000 for the Ali–Lewis fight.
1 more example
This is why I can guarantee to start drilling and to put up the cash to back my word.
2007 September 27, Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood, spoken by Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), distributed by Paramount Vantage & Miramax Films
transitiveTo build a structure.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
1970, Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”, in Ladies of the Canyon, performed by Joni Mitchell
1 more example
The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, […].
1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
transitiveTo make available; to offer.
The picture was put up for auction.
3 more examples
I put my first child up for adoption.
The house on Arbol Drive was put up for sale that autumn; this portion of the street soon vanished, and the land became part of the Hollywood Bowl complex.
2001, Donald Spoto, chapter 3, in Marilyn Monroe: The Biography (non-fiction), Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 39
Meanwhile, D9513 has been acquired by a member of the Wensleydale Railway, after it was put up for sale by its owners who had the locomotive at the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Railway.
2023 November 1, “'Western' on the move as diesel-hydraulics change hands”, in RAIL, number 995, page 24
transitivehobbiesTo cause (wild game) to break cover.
"By George! they'll have something to excite them if they put us up."
1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
idiomatictransitivefood and drinkTo can (food) domestically; to preserve (meat, fruit or vegetables) by sterilizing and/or pickling and storing in a bottle, jar or can.
People made their own cottage cheese, picked wild strawberries and canned them, and put up apples.
1983, Audrey Borenstein, Chimes of Change and Hours: Views of Older Women in Twentieth-century America (non-fiction), Associated University Presses, →ISBN, page 187
CanadaUSidiomatictransitivehobbiesTo score; to accumulate scoring. Ellipsis of to put up on the scoreboard.
The last player to have more than 140 points in one season was Mario Lemieux, who put up 160 in 1995-96.
2011 August 9, John Kreiser, “The Great One's 23 unbreakable records”, in NHL.com, archived from the original on 01 May 2020
1 more example
In addition to putting up nearly 3,300 receiving yards and 32 touchdown receptions in three college seasons, he was also the main punt returner for the Sooners.
2020 April 24, Ken Belson, Ben Shpigel, “Full Round 1 2020 N.F.L. Picks and Analysis”, in the New York Times
historicaltransitivemediaTo set (matter) in capital letters; to switch text from lowercase to capital letters.
Antonyms: put down
slangtransitiveAfrican-American VernacularTo compliment or respect (someone); to number (someone) among some greats.
I put him up with Biggie, Tupac and them.
slangtransitiveAfrican-American VernacularTo kill (someone).
I'll put him up.
Synonym of frame up (“falsely pin a crime on”).
Synonyms: frame up
UKarchaicslangtransitiveTo inspect or plan out with a view to robbery.
Her account of the manner in which the 'plant' was made upon her, affords a good example of the style of 'putting up' a house robbery: […]
1856, The London Quarterly Review, volumes 98-99, page 104