send up
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English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]send up (third-person singular simple present sends up, present participle sending up, simple past and past participle sent up)
- (transitive) To imitate (someone or something) for the purpose of satirical humour.
- The programme accurately sends up the British Civil Service system at Whitehall.
- 2004 November 18, William Cook, “All in the worst possible taste”, in The Guardian[1]:
- It started out running adverts that sent up the products they were supposed to be promoting. Today you scarcely see an advert that isn't sending up itself.
- 2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian[2]:
- He had more fun co-writing and directing two series for the BBC called Ripping Yarns (1976-79) in which Palin starred as a series of heroic characters in mock-adventure stories, among them Across the Andes by Frog, and Roger of the Raj, sending up interwar literature aimed at schoolboys.
- (transitive, US, slang) To put in prison.
- The judge sent him up for three years.
- 1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, Carroll & Graf, published 1997, →ISBN, page 161:
- "I guess you're a wise one, all right, but what's the use? I tell you we've got enough on you already to send you up. You might as well talk straight."
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see send, up.
- Fears of war sent oil prices up by 10%.
Usage notes
[edit]- In all senses the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
- In sense 2, the passive form is much more common.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to imitate someone or something for the purpose of satirical humour
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to be put in prison
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