stop up
Idioms-
Fill a hole or gap, block an opening or passage. For example, We need to stop up the chinks in the walls, or The sink is stopped up; it won't drain. This idiom was at first put simply as stop, the adverb up being added only in the early 1700s.
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.
Greed also causes overleveraging: You keep adding to a winning position without moving your stop up to protect profits, then suddenly bad news hits, and what was your biggest winner yesterday wipes you out today.
From MarketWatch • Jan. 28, 2026
"I now put the food away when I go to bed, but in the morning I've found the towel I've used to stop up the gap is pulled out and chewed too."
From BBC • Apr. 3, 2023
And so we let crickets be crickets and I stop up my ears.
From Slate • Feb. 26, 2022
But you can’t let your fear and anger stop up your ears.
From Fox News • Aug. 27, 2020
This would be the moment that Aziz—peeking from between a row of spark plugs—would see her new husband stop up a volcanic rage, as if it was a bottled djinn.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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.