to mat up

6.1

Hair or fabric becomes tangled and stuck together into a thick mass

phrasal verb
/mæt ʌp/

: enredarse

If you don't brush your long hair regularly, it will mat up and become difficult to untangle.

And he had heroin balloons all matted up in his ass hair or he had obviously put them in there to hide them.

Examples

The dog's fur matted up with dirt and leaves after playing in the park.
After swimming in the ocean, my hair matted up from the salt water and sand.
She'd be screaming and crying with her little body wriggling on the bed, her hair all matted up on her woody-colored face.

Fiction book (2000)

Synonyms

to mat

vsto mat up

1 4.9

To become tangled into a thick mass, especially hair or fur

is the same meaning but expressed as a two-word form

to matte

vsto mat up

1 8.4

To make cloth or fur form tight, tangled patches from rubbing

is the general tangling into a thick mass not limited to moisture or friction

to felt

vsto mat up

1 8.1

To make wool or other fibers mat together and form a thick cloth

is more general meaning fibers tangle into a thick mass not pressed

Antonyms

to untangle

10 3.5

To separate threads or cords that are twisted together

smooth

1 5.8

An act of making a surface even by rubbing or pressing

How Tangled

to felt

1 8.1

to mat up

6.1

to tangle

46 3.7

Surface Forms

mat up infinitive

matted up past

matted up past participle

matting up present participle

mats up third person singular

Morphology

mat + up

The core verb 'mat' already means to tangle into a thick mass, and the particle 'up' functions as a resultative/intensifying marker in English. A B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily derive 'mat up' as 'become matted' or 'make into a matted mass', so the construction is compositional and transparent.

Etymology

Mat up comes from the simple picture of hair, fur, or cloth forming a thick, tangled mat, with up showing the change has happened. So mat up means 'to become tangled and pressed together'.