upend

See also: up-end

English

WOTD – 18 May 2012

Etymology

From up- +‎ end.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʌpˈɛnd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnd
• Homophone: append

Verb

upend (third-person singular simple present upends, present participle upending, simple past and past participle upended)

1. (transitive) To end up; to set on end.
2. To tip or turn over.

   When he upended the bottle of water over his sleeping sister, the lid popped off and surprised them both.

   upend the box and empty the contents

   • 2017 June 11, Ben Fisher, “England seal Under-20 World Cup glory as Dominic Calvert-Lewin strikes”, in the Guardian‎^[1]:

     Venezuela, who introduced the exciting 17-year-old Samuel Sosa late on, pressed forward and eventually carved out a golden opportunity to level. Jake Clarke-Salter, the Chelsea defender, upended Peñaranda inside the box and after consulting the threesome of video officials inside the Suwon World Cup stadium, the referee, Bjorn Kuipers, pointed to the spot.

3. (transitive, figurative) To destroy, invalidate, overthrow, or defeat.

   The scientific evidence upended the popular myth.

   • 2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq.

4. (transitive, figurative) To affect or upset drastically.

   By the middle of March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic upended normal life for virtually all Americans.

Translations

to end up; to set on end

• Bulgarian: поставям на ръб (postavjam na rǎb)
• Dutch: stop zetten, beëindigen (nl)
• Finnish: lopettaa (fi)
• German: hochkant stellen
• Russian: зака́нчивать (ru) (zakánčivatʹ), положить конец (ru) (položitʹ konec)
• Swedish: resa upp, ställa på högkant, ställa på ända

to tip or turn over

• Bulgarian: преобръщам (bg) (preobrǎštam)
• Dutch: omkiepen (nl), op zijn kop zetten
• Finnish: kääntää ympäri
• French: bouleverser (fr), verser (fr)
• German: umkippen (de), umstülpen (de), auf den Kopf stellen
• Maori: porohuri
• Portuguese: virar (pt)
• Romanian: întoarce (ro), da peste cap
• Russian: переворачивать (ru) (perevoračivatʹ), опрокидывать (ru) (oprokidyvatʹ)
• Spanish: dar vuelta f, voltear (es)
• Swedish: vända på, vända (sv), vända upp och ned på, välta omkull

to destroy, invalidate

• Dutch: onderuithalen (nl)
• Finnish: murtaa (fi), murskata (fi)
• German: zerstören (de)
• Russian: сверга́ть (ru) (svergátʹ), опровергать (ru) (oprovergatʹ)
• Spanish: refutar (es), desafiar (es)
• Swedish: kullkasta (sv)

Anagrams

• end up