Word.ws English Dictionary

doing up

doing up is the present participle and gerund 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 doing up

What is doing up the present participle and gerund of?
Doing up is the present participle and gerund of do up.

Words near doing up in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing 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: “doing up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doing_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.