plumber up

Verb

plumber up (third-person singular simple present plumbers up, present participle plumbering up, simple past and past participle plumbered up)

1. (rare, slang, transitive) To botch or ruin.
   • When a pilot no longer heeds the demands of vanity or misplaced pride; when he attempts not to salvage a plumbered-up approach with a desperate bit of squirming and jockeying, but rather shrugs it off as a well-deserved object lesson in complacency and tools around the circuit again—then he is a...1956 May, “Whatever Happened to the Waveoff?”, in A. B. Young, Jr., editor, Approach: The Naval Aviation Safety Review, volume I, number 11, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →ISSN...
   • Even bananas are in trouble, though not from the weather. The maritime strikers have “plumbered up” the shipping situation to the extent that the demand far exceeds the supplies.1963 January 24, Patty Johnson, “Marketwise: Hurry! Get in before prices change!”, in Waterloo Daily Courier, Waterloo, Ia., →OCLC, page 8, column 6
2. (colloquial, rare, transitive) To work on (something) as a plumber; to equip (something) with plumbing.
   • The tooth was not pulled but the dentist found a couple of cavities which he plumbered up a little.1931 October 1, W. F. Fox, Jr., “A Corner in Pigskin”, in The Indianapolis News, last edition, volume LXII, number 255 (19,315 overall), Indianapolis, Ind., →OCLC, section 2, page 9
   • And when the job is done and the inhabitants are settled in their shined-up, painted-up and plumbered-up dwellings, it will be interesting and important to see what percentage of these places is kept by their occupants in that condition, and what percentage is allowed to sag swiftly back to...1965 February 4, “Block of Hope”, in Daily News, volume 46, number 192, New York, N.Y.: News Syndicate Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 37, column 1