Word.ws English Dictionary

sew up

sew up verb: to seal by sewing.

Verb

sew up (third-person singular simple present sews up, present participle sewing up, simple past sewed up, past participle sewn up)

  1. (transitive) To seal by sewing.
    • Amongst the Narrinyeri in South Australia men of the Snake clan sometimes catch snakes, pull out their teeth or sew up their mouths, and keep them as pets.1887, James George Frazer, Totemism, page 14
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To bring a matter to a full conclusion that deals with all outstanding issues or other concerns.
    • Threatening to veto the Berkshire offer suggests the fund doesn't have the financing sewn up and is stalling for time.2017 August 17, Lauren Silva Laughlin, “In Battle Over Texas Utility, Elliott Is Grasping at Straws”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Aug 2018

Forms of sew up

third-person singular presentsews up
present participlesewing up
pastsewed up
past participlesewn up

Questions about sew up

What does sew up mean?
Sew up means to seal by sewing.
What part of speech is sew up?
Sew up is a verb.
What is the past tense of sew up?
The past tense of sew up is sewed up.

Words near sew up in the dictionary

  1. Sevy
  2. Sevys
  3. sew
  4. sew buttons
  5. sew buttons on your underwear
  6. sew up
  7. sew-ups
  8. sewa
  9. sewability
  10. sewable
  11. sewadar

Source and license

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