fold up
Britishverb
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(tr) to make smaller or more compact
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(intr) to collapse, as with laughter or pain
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Fail, especially go out of business. For example, Three stores on Main Street have folded up .
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Collapse, break down. For example, When she told him about the dog's death, she folded up . This idiom alludes to closing or bringing an object into more compact form. [Early 1900s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The studios would rent for about $1,500 a month and weren’t that small, he said, given modular furniture—beds that fold up, closets that pop out.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026
“When I’m at a restaurant, I will fold up the chopstick wrapper and build a little fort with the plates and chopsticks and, like, make stuff in my hands,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 5, 2024
I arrived with my folding bike expecting I’d need to convince them my bike would fold up smaller than a suitcase.
From Seattle Times • May 7, 2024
Dr Angus Jackson, a data analyst at the Marine Conservation Society, said they sometimes "fold up their arms and roll along the sea floor".
From BBC • Feb. 27, 2024
I watched his soul fold up on itself like a closing door.
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.