Word.ws English Dictionary

'fess up

'fess up is the alternative form of fess up.

Meaning of fess up

Verb

fess up (third-person singular simple present fesses up, present participle fessing up, simple past and past participle fessed up)

  1. (colloquial, intransitive) To 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
    Synonyms:
    own up

Forms of 'fess up

third-person singular present'fesses up
present participle'fessing up
past participle'fessed up
past'fessed up

Questions about 'fess up

What is 'fess up the alternative form of?
'fess up is the alternative form of fess up.

Words near 'fess up in the dictionary

  1. 'erb
  2. 'erbs
  3. 'ere
  4. 'ey up
  5. 'fess
  6. 'fess up
  7. 'fessed
  8. 'fessed up
  9. 'fesses
  10. 'fesses up
  11. 'fessing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 'fess up (page history and authors); fess up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “'fess up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%27fess_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.