chuck up

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

chuck up (third-person singular simple present chucks up, present participle chucking up, simple past and past participle chucked up)

1. (slang, transitive and intransitive, chiefly British, New Zealand) To vomit; throw up.

   Synonyms: (US) upchuck, throw up

   She got ridiculously drunk last night and chucked up in the back of the minicab on the way home.

   Take it easy on the roller coasters or you're going to chuck up your lunch.

2. (dated, transitive and intransitive) To chuck up the sponge; to give up; to admit defeat; to break a contract; to abandon or quit (something).

   Synonyms: throw in the towel, chuck in, jig up, jack up

   • 1891, Gems from Our Village, page 62:

     But when you've tried it once or twice, And do not find it over nice, If it's dear at any price, Chuck it up. If it's not a paying game, Not worth the candle — all the same, Chuck it up.

   • 1919, John Buchan, Mr. Standfast:

     What worried me was the sense of being up against something inhumanly formidable and wise and strong. I believed I was willing to own defeat and chuck up the game.

   • 2013, Pede Hollist, “Foreign Aid”, in A Memory This Size and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing, →ISBN, page 40:

     With a renewed sense of purpose, Logan was ready to chuck up the day as a waste until he stepped into the parlour of their home and almost bumped into a slinky, dark-skinned girl in a cotton docket and lappa, with a mid-leg slit on one side.

   • 2014, E. W. Hornung, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, →ISBN:

     I've never brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up.

   • 2014, Robert Purvis, Three Men Called Josiah, →ISBN, page 70:

     He sounded quite excited, as if he were deriving some vicarious pleasure from the anticipated outcome of my efforts, and I hadn't the heart to tell him how, at that precise moment, I was feeling quite ready to chuck up the whole thing.

3. (slang, archaic) To be released from prison.

Derived terms

• chuck up the sponge

Translations

to vomit

• Danish: kaste op (da)
• Finnish: oksentaa (fi)
• Spanish: chuñar

to give up or abandon (something)

• French: laisser tout en plan

See also

• chalk up/chalk up to

Anagrams

• upchuck