sum up
See also: sum-up
English
editVerb
editsum up (third-person singular simple present sums up, present participle summing up, simple past and past participle summed up)
- (transitive, intransitive) To produce a total by adding.
- We summed up the donations and found that we had just enough to pay the bills.
- (transitive, intransitive) To summarize.
- So, to sum up your argument, what you are saying is that it is impossible.
- 1950 November, H. P. White, “The Furka-Oberalp Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 770:
- To sum up, the Furka-Oberalp Railway is a good example of the adaptation of the rack-and-pinion system to a main line over mountainous terrain.
- 2011 February 12, Nabil Hassan, “Blackburn 0 - 0 Newcastle”, in BBC[1]:
- Best came close to getting on the end of Barton's cross but he was inches away from connecting. It was an incident that summed up Newcastle's afternoon.
Usage notes
edit- The object can come before or after the particle (for example, we summed the argument up as "think twice" or we summed up the argument as "think twice"; both are idiomatically acceptable in English). If the object is a pronoun, then it must come before the particle (for example, we summed it up as "think twice" is idiomatic but *we summed up it as "think twice" is unidiomatic and solecistic).
Synonyms
editTranslations
editsum up — see summarize