Word.ws English Dictionary

did up

did up is the simple past of do up.

Meaning of do up

Verb

do up (third-person singular simple present does up, present participle doing up, simple past did up, past participle done up)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To fasten (a piece of clothing, etc.); to tighten (a nut etc.)
    • I can't do up my shirt. The button is missing.
    Antonyms:
    undo
  2. (colloquial, idiomatic, transitive) To redecorate (a room, etc.); to make improvements to (a home or domestic property).
    • Near-synonyms: fix up, spruce up, vamp up
  3. (idiomatic, informal, transitive) To execute a task or performance; to execute it well.
    • This time I'm going to do it up right.
  4. (idiomatic, transitive) To pack together and envelop; to pack up, tie up, or both.
    • I did up the parcel with string and took it to the post office.
  5. (dated, transitive) To accomplish thoroughly.
  6. (archaic, transitive) To starch and iron.
    • a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 20, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

See all 8 meanings of do up

Questions about did up

What is did up the simple past of?
Did up is the simple past of do up.

Words near did up in the dictionary

  1. did the washing up
  2. did the washing-up
  3. did time
  4. did tricks on it
  5. did unto others
  6. did up
  7. did violence to
  8. did well
  9. did well by doing good
  10. did well for oneself
  11. did with mirrors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: did up (page history and authors); do 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.

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Cite this entry: “did up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/did_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.