close up

Verb

close up (third-person singular simple present closes up, present participle closing up, simple past and past participle closed up)

1. (intransitive) To close (remove a gap) completely or fully.
   • Some flowers close up at night to stay protected from the cold.
2. (intransitive) To move nearer together so that a gap is removed.
   • The crowd closed up and I couldn't get through to the train.
3. (transitive) To enclose, confine.
   • In Sanʿa the Jews have been separated from the Mohammedan population for the last three hundred years, and closed up in a Ghetto apart from the main town.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 369
4. (ambitransitive) To shut a building or a business for a period of time.
   • We finally managed to close up the shop for the night at about 10 o'clock.
   • The car factory has closed up for the August holidays.

   Synonyms:

   close

5. (intransitive) Of a cut or other wound: To heal.
   • With stitches, the cut should close up in a week to ten days.
6. (intransitive) To become less 'open' or communicative; to shrink back.
   • to close up emotionally
7. (Australia, intransitive, slang) To stop talking.