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Glite Dictionary
to fess up

to fess up

28 8.0
To say you did something wrong, often after being asked
  • phrasal verb
  • /fɛs ʌp/
  • Informal
translation icon : confesar
  • And when you a man, you own up and you fess up to the things that you did wrong.
  • Now, fess up
  • Finally, fessed up
  • Just fess up

And one of them was Corey Scott, who went and fessed up to the murder.

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Examples

  • You can save yourself a lot of grief if you just 'fess up now.

    Bloodrunners (2017)

  • Just be honest and fess up instead of perpetuating the mistrust here.

    Blog text (11)

  • Be a man and fess up, Ray, Ray, whatever.

  • It's to get the guys to fess up about the location of the gun.

    Detroit (2017)

  • I tried to get Scott to fess up.

    The Last Song (2010)

  • Come on, fess up, now.

    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

  • Well, thanks for fessing up.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • You made a wrong decision, fess up to it, apologize, and put more talks like this on TED.

    Blog text (2)

  • That's when I fessed up.

    Blue Like Jazz (2012)

  • If you did something wrong, it's best to fess up and take responsibility.

Synonyms

to admit
vsto fess up
∞ 2.0

Say that something is true without wanting to

is more informal and usually about personal wrongs after pressure
to confess
vsto fess up
576 3.0

To say you did something wrong or illegal

is more informal and used in everyday situations after questioning
to concede
vsto fess up
146 4.9

To say that something is true even when you do not want to say it

is about saying you are responsible for wrongdoing after pressure
to come clean
vsto fess up
  • Informal
92 4.1

To say the truth about something you kept secret

is often used when someone says they did it after being asked
to tell the truth
vsto fess up
  • Informal
48 3.2

To say something that is true even if it is surprising

is more about saying you are responsible after being asked
to own up
vsto fess up
  • Informal
38 4.4

Admit that you did something wrong or made a mistake

is more informal and often follows being asked or pressed
to own up to
vsto fess up
  • Informal
33 4.2

To say you did something wrong or embarrassing

is used informally when someone is urged to accept fault
to fess
vsto fess up
  • Informal
30 8.3

To admit that you did something, often reluctantly

is the everyday phrase used for reluctant disclosure after pressure
to make a clean breast of
vsto fess up
1 7.5

To tell the whole truth about something wrong you did

is less formal and often a brief statement accepting fault

Antonyms

to lie
∞ 1.3

To say something that is not true to trick someone

to withhold
210 5.1

Refuse to give something someone wants or needs

How Open

to confess
576 3.0
to admit
∞ 2.0
to fess up
  • Informal
28 8.0
to deny
∞ 2.0
to evade
31 3.9

Surface Forms

fess up infinitive
fessed up past
fessed up past participle
fessing up present participle
fesses up third person singular

Morphology

fess + up

The verb 'fess' (a clipping of 'confess') already means 'to acknowledge or confess', and the particle 'up' adds a sense of completion/intensification, so the combined meaning 'to admit/confess' is directly derivable. This follows a common phrasal-verb pattern (compare 'own up'), making it transparent to a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings.

Etymology

Fess up comes from a shortened form of the word 'confess': people dropped the first part and said fess, and then added up to show the action is open or complete. So fess up means 'to admit' or 'confess' to something you did.