to clutter up
7
4.2
- phrasal verb
- /ˈklʌtər ʌp/
:
desordenar
- A lot of passengers really don't understand how simple items can clutter up a bag.
- clutter up the room
- clutter up my life
- clutter up the space
And you have to do so in a systematic way that means that things can't all just be left out like on a, on a workbench, you know, cluttered up.
- And you have to do so in a systematic way that means that things can't all just be left out like on a, on a workbench, you know, cluttered up.
Examples
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Synergy is a software download that solves the problem of having two keyboards and two mice cluttering up your desk.
-
No more voluminous irrelevant tweets, hashtags, and symbols cluttering up LinkedIn news feeds.
Blog text (23) -
I do not like them cluttering up my theatre.
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This stuff will clutter up the picture.
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Go on, get back to work and stop cluttering up the street, or we'll all be arrested.
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It's costing me a lot of time and it's cluttering up my space.
-
They were cluttering up the room.
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For mere pennies a day, you, too, can acquire abandoned bric-a-brac with which to clutter up your premises.
Fiction book (2001) -
I was getting nostalgic anyway after unpacking the last of the boxes that were cluttering up my workspace at home.
Blog text (25) -
My house is a wreck because half my office is cluttering up every floor.
Synonyms
248
1.0
To make something untidy or dirty
243
2.0
To fill something tightly with things
73
2.2
To make a place untidy by leaving rubbish and scattered things
52
3.0
To make something untidy, dirty, or not in the right place
27
3.7
To fill a space with many things so it becomes untidy
16
3.2
Push things or people into a small space until nothing fits
3
3.9
To put too much into something so it spills out
1
2.1
Make a place messy so things are not in order
1
4.1
To make a place too full by putting too many people or things in it
To fill a space so full that nothing more can be added
Antonyms
How Messy
Surface Forms
Morphology
clutter + up
The meaning is directly derivable from the verb 'clutter' (to fill or make untidy) with the particle 'up' adding a sense of filling/completion or intensification; a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer 'to fill a space with too many things, making it untidy'. This verb+up phrasal pattern is a regular, compositional construction in English (and has parallels in many languages), so it is transparent rather than idiomatic.
Etymology
The phrasal verb clutter up comes from the image of putting many things into a room until it becomes full and messy. Clutter is the heap of items and up shows the space is filled, so it means 'to fill a space with too many things'.