double up
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]double up (third-person singular simple present doubles up, present participle doubling up, simple past and past participle doubled up)
- (transitive) To double the quantity, amount or duration of something
- I'm going to double up my enlistment.
- (poker, by extension, intransitive) To double one's amount of chips by winning an all-in pot.
- (intransitive) To bend, bend over; to fold; to stoop.
- 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:
- "It is well, then that we should be frank," said the other. "We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?" / "Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!"
- (transitive) To cause (someone) to bend over; to beat up (someone).
- I doubled him up with a swift punch to the stomach.
- (intransitive) To have a secondary use.
- Synonym: double
- This unfolding sofa doubles up as a bed.
- 1913, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 7, in Pollyanna[2], L.C. Page, →OCLC:
- A little fearfully now, Pollyanna felt her way to these bags, selected a nice fat soft one (it contained Miss Polly's sealskin coat) for a bed; and a thinner one to be doubled up for a pillow, and still another (which was so thin it seemed almost empty) for a covering.
- 2017 June 11, Ben Fisher, “England seal Under-20 World Cup glory as Dominic Calvert-Lewin strikes”, in the Guardian[3]:
- Fikayo Tomori, the Chelsea defender, sang “championes, championes” with his winners’ medal swaying from side to side. For Joshua Onomah and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, England banners doubled up as celebratory bandanas.
- (baseball, transitive) To get the second out in a double play, typically referring to getting an out by beating a runner back to a base (often by throwing) after a fly ball has been caught
- Jones snared the liner and then stepped on the bag to double up the runner.
- (intransitive) To employ double the usual resources for a particular purpose; to work in pairs.
- 2012, Ben Smith, Leeds United 2-1 Everton[4]:
- Tactically smart, Leeds' work-rate was also admirable, their players often doubling up on Everton's main threats like Marouane Fellaini, while Victor Anichibe found he had unwelcome, unstinting company throughout.
- (intransitive, slang) To marry or live with someone; to share a living space.
Related terms
[edit]- (to bend, to fold, to stoop): double over