to crap up
1
9.9
- phrasal verb
- Offensive
:
estropear
- His careless mistakes really crap up the project and delay its completion.
Examples
-
If you keep working without a plan, you'll just crap up the entire presentation.
-
They crap up the negotiations by not paying attention to the details.
-
And, you know, I had a lot of people say, you've had a good run, give this crap up, go and get a real job.
Synonyms
641
6.3
To make a mistake that ruins what you are doing
597
2.8
To make a mistake that causes a problem
203
9.9
To make a serious mistake that ruins something
63
6.0
To do something badly and spoil the result
37
9.9
To do something badly and ruin how it turns out
20
4.9
Deal with something badly so it causes problems or damage
8
6.4
To make a mistake that ruins something because you are careless
5
7.6
To ruin something by making mistakes or doing it badly
5
8.9
To spoil something by doing it badly
4
8.1
To make a mess of a plan or task by doing it badly
2
5.4
To make a mistake especially by forgetting words on stage
2
6.7
Do a job badly and make a mess of it
1
7.9
To do something badly and ruin how it turns out
1
9.9
To do something so badly that it fails
To ruin something by doing it badly
To spoil or ruin something by making a careless mistake
To do something badly and make it fail
To ruin something by a careless mistake
To ruin something completely by making serious mistakes
Antonyms
How Ruined
∞
2.0
225
2.9
- Offensive
1
9.9
80
2.8
2
5.3
- Informal
52
3.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The negative sense of 'crap' (worthless, to do something poorly) combined with the particle 'up' (indicating completion or a change of state) gives a plausible compositional reading 'make something crap / spoil something,' so a learner could partially infer the meaning. However, this usage is informal/slang and the specific sense 'ruin or spoil' is not a fully regular, cross-linguistic particle construction, so it is not reliably predictable for an average B1 learner without exposure.
Etymology
Crap up may come from the idea of covering something with crap, making a big mess that spoils it. That's why it also means 'ruin' or 'spoil' something, often by being careless.