Meaning of tie up | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To secure with rope, string, etc.
2. To occupy, detain, keep busy, or delay.
   idiomatic
3. To complete, finish, or resolve.
   idiomatic
4. To immobilize a capital: make a capital investment that makes that capital unavailable.

Equivalents

Examples

“Don't forget to tie up your hair before you bake.”

“The robbers tied up the bank employees before forcing a way into the vault.”

“At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.”

““Mother — Mother will you tie up my shoeies?” Susan’s lisping voice interrupted their conversation.”

“He has been tying up the phone lines for hours now.”

“Just how much traffic was tied up was not immediately determined but in Houston about 150 cars of grain arrived yesterday and could not be transferred to the port because of the Port Terminal Railroad picketing.”

“I'd like to tie up the project before I leave.”

“Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief Elspeth Macdonald said the whitefish fleet could have had to tie up for the entire year because of the recommendation.”

“Don't tie up your capital in aging accounts.”

CEFR level