setup
Pluralsetups
- 1The overall arrangement or organization of something, including how its parts are laid out.
The team praised the conference's seating setup for encouraging conversation.
Her home studio setup lets her record music and edit video in one place.
Similararrangement, layout, configuration, organization, structure
Note
Sports writing uses it for a team's formation: a 4-3-3 setup can drift toward a 4-4-2 as players push up or move wide. Broadcasting and business use it the same way for how an organization is staffed, as when Billboard in 1993 compared a station's two news teams to WBZ's setup. Either way it means arrangement rather than hardware, which is the line between it and the apparatus meaning.
- 2An arrangement of equipment or apparatus intended for a particular use.
The band's audio setup took two hours to assemble before the show.
Scientists tested the new laser setup in the lab.
Similarrig, apparatus, equipment, system, gear
Note
The noun is made from the phrasal verb set up, and it is written as one word while the verb stays two: you set up the equipment, and the result is the setup. Here it names a working arrangement of gear, such as a laboratory's measuring rig or a band's sound system. It usually carries a modifier saying what it is for: an audio setup, an elaborate setup for measuring energy.
- 3
- 4The work of preparing machines, materials, and other resources for a particular operation, for example one production run of a given product.
Reducing the machine setup between batches saved the plant several hours each week.
The line operator logged the setup before beginning the production run.
Similarmakeready
Oppositeteardown
Note
On a factory floor the word names a cost to be measured. Reloading bottles and labels, cleaning the tanks and making a test run all count as setup on a bottling line. Setup time is tracked apart from run time because nothing is produced while it happens. Its synonym make-ready names the same preparatory stage.
- 5A move or series of moves meant to provoke a reaction that opens a gap in the opponent's defense.
The fighter's left hook was a setup that pulled his rival's hands high, exposing the body.
Coaches drilled the feint-and-cross setup until the opening came automatically.
Similarfeint, decoy, ploy, lure
Note
Boxing's version is a trap laid with the fists, and it usually takes the construction a setup for something. The jab is the classic setup for other strikes: a feint or light punch baits a predictable block and leaves the opening the next blow uses. Unlike the frame-up meaning, the deception here is part of the craft, not an accusation.
- 6A program that installs software onto a computer; an installer.
Run the setup and follow the prompts to install the editing software.
The download came with a setup that placed all the files in the right folders.
Similarinstaller
Oppositeuninstaller
Note
Software installers took the name from what they do, which is to set a program up on a system. A setup is something you run. InfoWorld in 1995 notes that you still had to run the setup and choose a display driver after restarting Windows. The usual verb is run, not install: you run the setup, and the setup does the installing.
- 7The tendency of steady wind to raise water levels on the downwind shore of a body of water and lower them on the upwind shore.
The setup along the lake's downwind shore raised water levels by nearly a meter during the storm.
Forecasters warned that persistent gales would create a strong setup against the harbor.
Note
A lake's surface tilts under a steady wind, and hydrologists call the piled-up water at the downwind end setup, usually in the phrase wind setup. After a day of northerly gales the southern shore stands higher and the northern one lower. Sustained wind stress causes it, and the extra height adds to flooding in severe storms.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb "set up," used as a noun.