do up

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do up (third-person singular simple present does up, present participle doing up, simple past did up, past participle done up)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To fasten (a piece of clothing, etc.); to tighten (a nut etc.)

   I can't do up my shirt. The button is missing.

   Help me do up this zipper.

   You hold it in place while I do up the nut.

2. (transitive, idiomatic, colloquial) To redecorate (a room, etc.); to make improvements to (a home or domestic property).

   I'm going to do up the living room next.

   They've done up the house so that they can sell it more easily.

   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds, — because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands.

   • 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3:

     So many people were doing up their apartments that supplies of high-grade fixtures and fittings were at a premium.

3. (transitive, idiomatic, informal) To execute a task or performance.

   This time I'm going to do it up right.

4. (transitive, idiomatic) To pack together and envelop; to pack up.

   I did up the parcel with string and took it to the post office.

5. (transitive, dated) To accomplish thoroughly.
6. (transitive, archaic) To starch and iron.
   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 20, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch

7. (slang) To beat up; to physically assault.

The object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.

• (antonym(s) of “fasten clothing”): undo

• (fasten clothing): buckle, buckle up, button, button up, tie, tie up, zip, zip up

• done up like a kipper

• PUDO, poud, updo