mop up

Verb

mop up (third-person singular simple present mops up, present participle mopping up, simple past and past participle mopped up)

1. To clean up (liquid) with a mop, rag, sponge, or other cleaning device.
   • Please mop up the spilled milk.
   • And though Fightville, an MMA documentary from the directors of the fine Iraq War doc Gunner Palace, presents it more than fairly, the sight of a makeshift ring getting constructed on a Louisiana rodeo ground does little to shake the label. Nor do the shots of ringside assistants with spray bottles...2002 April 19, Scott Tobias, AV Club, Fightville
2. (informal) To fix problems; to correct or repair.
   • After they argued, it fell to me to talk to her and try to mop up.
   • They learned nothing in their lives to prepare them for this time period; they were choosing to mop up the silliness of their past and shape it into something to promote survival.2003, Erica Glen, Double Intensity, →ISBN
3. (transitive) To absorb the leftovers of a dish with bread etc., in order to eat them.
   • He mopped up the sauce with the bread and scarfed it down like he had been raised by wolves.2003, Jeff Call, Rolling With the Tide, page 112
   • Don't forget to mop up the gravy with your bread, there's a good husband2012, Marie Joseph, Maggie Craig, →ISBN
4. To consume or get rid of an excess of something.
   • The function of the weak acid component of a buffer is to act as a source of H⁺ ions which can mop up any added OH⁻: HA + OH⁻ → A⁻ + H₂O2004, Janet Renshaw, Ted Lister, Essential A2 Chemistry for OCR, →ISBN, page 128
   • The war, legitimised as it was by the coalesced decision makers, was intended to 'mop up' terrorism.2008, Angharad Closs Stephens, Nick Vaughan-Williams, Terrorism and the Politics of Response, →ISBN, page x
5. To clean up an area destroyed by a natural disaster or by violent activity.
   • Crew members or leaders of a 20-person organized inter-agency hotshot suppression crew build firelines, conduct burnout operations, and mop up after the fire using chainsaws and hand tools such as Pulaskis and shovels.2001, Fight Fire with Intelligence, Skill, and Courage
   • Nobody wanted to join the 'Cardigan Squad' – so-called because Child Protection officers were seen as woolly, glorified social workers that mopped up after domestics.2010, Harry Keeble, Baby X: Britain’s Child Abusers Brought to Justice, →ISBN, page 153
6. To finish something off; to apply a finishing touch
   • They patch up, mop up, neaten up the halfcooked and unsatisfactory ideas they find lying around in their head.1998, Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, →ISBN
   • So what you brought us together for is to tell us we're gonna turn Billy Gold over to them, mop up our operation, and go back to having normal lives again.2003, Jeff Kaye, Two Faces Have I, →ISBN, page 236
7. To get rid of (enemies) within a certain area.
   • No good trying to charge with them. They'd just squeal and bolt, and there are more than enough of these filthy horse-boys to mop up our lot on the flat.1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
   • One battalion was to mop up the Japanese on Hill Xray-Yoke and in the gulch to the south of it while the other two were to move up the ridge itself.1995, Philip A. Crowl, United States Army in World War 2: The War in the Pacific, Campaign in The Marianas, →ISBN
8. To win a competition decisively.
   • John Willment, a Ford distributor in Middlesex, imported a Holman & Moody-prepared Galaxie and – you may recall – let it loose among the 3.8 Jaguar racing contingent. WHAM! It mopped up everything in sight.1963, Car & Driver, volume 9, page 122
   • As more and more Red Sox drew walks and hit singles, our once insurmountable lead diminished. So, Joe Torre came out to call in his bullpen to mop up.2005, Harvey Frommer, Frederic J. Frommer, Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry, →ISBN
9. To pitch the final innings especially of a game that is no longer close.