Meaning of put up to | Babel Free

Definitions

To encourage or trick (someone) to perform (an action which is foolish or wrong).

ditransitive, idiomatic

Examples

“"He's goin' to that well there after water." "We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness." "Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."”

“"I done the other things—Brace he put me up to it, and persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and I'm sorry I done it."”

“This week in London the hero of Mayfair matrons is the next-to-youngest brother of Edward VIII, His Royal Highness Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. . . . Gloucester's young Scottish Duchess put him up to telling the King-Emperor after Mrs. Simpson's departure (TIME, Dec. 14), "You are a damn fool if you run after her now!" For his pains, Gloucester got slapped.”

“[T]hree suspects were brothers, ages 19, 31 and 34, who were caught collecting money squeezed from a victim. The two younger brothers blamed their older sibling, who has been in and out of prison for years, for putting them up to it.”

CEFR level