tie up

Definitions

1. 1

   To secure with rope, string, etc.

   • Don't forget to tie up your hair before you bake.
   • The robbers tied up the bank employees before forcing a way into the vault.
   • At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.
2. 2

   To occupy, detain, keep busy, or delay.

   • He has been tying up the phone lines for hours now.
   • Just how much traffic was tied up was not immediately determined but in Houston about 150 cars of grain arrived yesterday and could not be transferred to the port because of the Port Terminal Railroad picketing.
3. 3

   To complete, finish, or resolve.

   • I'd like to tie up the project before I leave.
   • Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief Elspeth Macdonald said the whitefish fleet could have had to tie up for the entire year because of the recommendation.
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To immobilize a capital

      To immobilize a capital: make a capital investment that makes that capital unavailable.

      • Don't tie up your capital in aging accounts.

The neighborhood

• neighbortie-up