put up

phrasal verb · put-up adjective · put-up noun

21 meanings of put up

1
toleratephrasal verbtransitive
To endure or tolerate something or someone unpleasant; now usually in the form put up with.
Residents have put up with the construction noise for nearly two years.
I don't know how you put up with a commute like that every day.
Similartolerate, endure, stand, bear, stomach
Note
Older English could use the phrase with a direct object. Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), says that Dionysius, kept standing outside a door in exile, wisely put it up, swallowing the slight. Present-day English adds with: put up with the noise, put up with him. Without with, a modern reader would hear another meaning altogether.
2
buildphrasal verbtransitive
To build or erect a structure.
Developers plan to put up three apartment towers along the river.
With help from the neighbors, the family put the barn up in a single weekend.
Similarbuild, erect, construct, raise
Oppositedemolish, raze
3
fix on wallphrasal verbtransitive
To hang or mount something in place.
The landlord finally came to put up new shelves in the kitchen.
Campaign signs had been put up all over town overnight.
Similarhang, mount, install, post
4
house a guestphrasal verbidiomatictransitive
To give someone a place to stay.
A local family put the stranded travelers up until the roads reopened.
The company puts up visiting engineers at a hotel near the plant.
Similarhouse, accommodate, lodge, host
Note
With a pronoun the phrase always splits: we can put you up, they put us up for a week, never put up you. With a noun either order works, put up our guests or put our guests up, and the length of the stay follows with for. Keep it apart from the "tolerate" meaning: putting you up is hospitality, putting up with you is patience.
5
resistphrasal verbidiomatictransitive
To present or offer something, especially resistance, as in put up a fight.
Protesters put up stiff resistance when police tried to clear the square.
The senator put up a strong fight before finally conceding the race.
Similaroffer, mount
Note
Nouns of struggle are its usual objects: put up a fight, put up resistance, often with a word for how much, as in quite a fight or not much resistance. The object normally follows the whole phrase, so put up a fight is idiomatic where put a fight up is not.
6
offer for salephrasal verbtransitive
To make something available; to offer it, as for sale, auction or adoption.
The museum put two of its paintings up for auction to pay for roof repairs.
After months of agonizing, she decided to put up the baby for adoption.
Similaroffer
7
provide moneyphrasal verbtransitive
To provide money in advance for something.
A group of local investors put up two million dollars to build the stadium.
The promoter put up the prize money months before the fight was even scheduled.
Similarprovide, advance, contribute, invest
8
place highphrasal verbtransitive
To place something in a high position.
Dad put the knives up on a high shelf, out of the toddler's reach.
Put up your hand if you have a question during the talk.
Similarraise, lift
Oppositelower
9
style hairphrasal verbtransitive
To arrange the hair up on the head rather than letting it hang down.
For the interview she put her hair up in a neat bun.
Her grandmother taught her to put up her hair with just two pins.
10
staged (job)adjective · put-up
Of an event, secretly arranged in advance, especially to cheat someone or to serve one's own interests.
Investigators came to believe the break-in was a put-up job staged to collect the insurance.
Critics called the town hall a put-up affair, with every question chosen in advance.
Similarstaged, rigged, fixed
Oppositegenuine, spontaneous
Note
Before a noun it is usually hyphenated: a put-up job, a put-up stunt, a put-up show. In use since the 19th century, it is an accusation as much as a description: to call something put-up is to say that someone staged it, usually to deceive.

11
darephrasal verbidiomatictransitive
To coax or dare someone into doing something; used with to.
I suspect his older brother put him up to the prank.
Nobody put me up to it; I wrote the letter on my own.
12
store awayphrasal verbidiomatictransitive
To store something away, putting it where it is kept.
Put up the lawn chairs before the storm rolls in.
She put up the leftovers in the fridge and started on the dishes.
Similarstore, stow
13
staged (job)noun · put-upcountable
Something arranged in advance or faked in order to trick someone or to further one's own interests.
The defense argued that the drug bust was a put-up arranged by a rival dealer.
Fans suspected the fight was a put-up, since both boxers had the same manager.
Similarsetup, fix, frame-up, sham
14
score pointsphrasal verbidiomaticCanadaUStransitive
To score, or to build up a scoring total over a game or a season.
The rookie put up 28 points and 11 rebounds in his first start.
Can the offense put up enough yards to keep pace with the league leaders?
Similarscore, post
Note
Sports talk in the US and Canada uses it as a shortening of putting a score up on the scoreboard. The object is a number or a statistic, for one game or a whole season or career: put up 30 points, put up nearly 3,300 receiving yards, put up big numbers. Outside sports writing the same tally would simply be scored or recorded.
15
preserve foodphrasal verbidiomatictransitive
To preserve meat, fruit, or vegetables at home by sterilizing them and sealing them in jars, bottles, or cans.
She spent August putting up green beans and corn from the garden.
My parents still put up their own pickles and applesauce every fall.
Similarpreserve, can, bottle
Note
It goes a step beyond the "store away" meaning: putting up apples or green beans means preserving them in sealed jars so they keep, while putting up leftovers only moves them to the fridge. The phrase belongs to the home kitchen rather than the factory, and the season's produce is its usual object: beans, corn, pickles, applesauce.
16
stay at innphrasal verbarchaicintransitive
To stay for a while at a hotel, inn, tavern, or similar place.
Rather than drive home in the storm, the salesman put up at a roadside motel.
Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner.
1860, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Note
This is the guest's side of the hosting meaning: there a host puts someone up, here the traveler puts up at an inn, a hotel or in a town. Pip does it in Dickens's Great Expectations, avoiding the Blue Boar to put up at an inn of minor reputation. The use now sounds old-fashioned; a modern traveler simply stays at a hotel.
17
praise highlyphrasal verbslangtransitive
To show great respect for someone, ranking them among the greats.
Honestly, I put that young poet up with the best of them.
A lot of folks put him up with the legends after that championship run.
Similarrank
Note
African-American Vernacular English uses it as slang for praise by ranking: you put someone up with the greats, or up there with them, naming the company they belong in. It praises by comparison rather than by flattery, and like most slang it suits conversation more than formal writing.
18
killphrasal verbslangtransitive
To kill a person.
Detectives heard a rumor that a rival crew had put him up over a debt.
He knew the crew would put him up if he ever showed his face in the neighborhood again.
Similarkill, murder
Note
The same slang words can be an offer of a bed, as in the hosting meaning, so I'll put him up is a threat only when the situation makes it one. Listeners outside that speech community will almost always hear the hospitable sense, which makes this use hard to recognize in print.
19
huntingphrasal verbtransitive
To drive wild game out of its cover so that it breaks into the open.
The spaniel worked along the hedgerow and put up a pair of pheasants.
Beaters moved through the woods to put up any deer hiding in the brush.
Similarflush, rouse
Note
Hunters also call this flushing, and the object is the game itself: put up a pheasant, put up a hare. The verb can be turned on people hiding like game, as in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912): "they'll have something to excite them if they put us up."
20
capital lettersphrasal verbhistoricaltransitive
To set type in capital letters, or to change text from lowercase to capitals.
The compositor put up the chapter titles and left the rest of the page in lowercase.
The typesetter had to put up the whole warning label after the client asked for capitals.
Similarcapitalize
Note
The phrase comes from the hand-set printing shop, where capitals were kept in the upper case of type and small letters in the lower, which is where uppercase and lowercase come from. Putting matter up moved it into capitals; its opposite, put down, moved it back. The usage belongs to the age of metal type.
21
plan robberyphrasal verbarchaicUKtransitive
To inspect a place or plan out a job in advance, with a view to robbing it.
An inside man helped them put up the robbery, telling them when the safe would be full.
The thieves put up the warehouse for weeks, noting when the night watchman made his rounds.
Note
British thieves once used this as slang for preparing a job. The object can be the place to be robbed or the robbery itself: thieves put up a house, or put up a robbery, and The London Quarterly Review described the style of putting up a house robbery in 1856. It sits close to the adjective for a rigged scheme, since both describe a crime arranged before it happens.

Practice

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Origin

Formed from the verb put up.