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Glite Dictionary
💳 To increase costs 🏳️ To raise up 🧵 To make quickly
to run up

to run up

4 4.2
Make clothes quickly by sewing, for example a dress
  • phrasal verb
  • /rʌn ʌp/
  • UK
translation icon : coser
  • If you need a quick outfit, I can run up a new shirt for you tonight.

Examples

  • Bring a sweater anyway, or have your wife run up a couple of coats from old Hudson Bay blankets.

    Academic text (1999)

  • She can run up a simple dress in just a few hours for the party.

  • And a little dress that Schiaparelli ran up.

    Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

  • The fabric had been shipped off to Flint, Michigan, where Nell had "run up matching muumuus for the three of us in attendance.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • He decided to run up some curtains to match the new furniture in the living room.

Synonyms

to sew
vsto run up
242 1.0

Join, fix and make clothes and other things made of cloth using a needle and thread or a machine

is done quickly to produce a garment rather than general fabric work
to stitch
vsto run up
99 2.5

To join or repair cloth with a needle and thread

is about quick making of a garment rather than individual needle actions
to knit
vsto run up
38 3.1

To make fabric by looping yarn with needles or a machine

refers to rapid production of garments rather than forming fabric from yarn
to sew together
vsto run up
7 2.3

To join two pieces of cloth with a needle and thread

focuses on fast making of an item not only joining pieces

Antonyms

to slow down
687 1.4

To move or act more slowly

to take apart
50 3.0

To separate something into parts so it can be moved or fixed

How Fast

to whip up
62 3.0
to run up
  • UK
4 4.2
to make
∞ 1.0
to sew
242 1.0

Surface Forms

run up infinitive
running up present participle
runs up third person singular
ran up past
run up past participle

Morphology

run + up

The particle 'up' clearly signals upward movement, so a learner who knows 'run' and 'up' could plausibly infer a sense like 'move something to a higher position.' However, the specific collocational meaning meaning 'hoist/raise (with ropes or pulleys)' and the use of 'run' in this causative/nautical sense is somewhat lexicalized and not fully predictable from the constituents, so prior exposure helps.

Etymology

The verb run up comes from sewing: a needle is quickly run up through the cloth as a fast way to make a dress or curtains. That's why it means 'to make something quickly'.