sum up

See also: sum-up

English

Verb

sum up (third-person singular simple present sums up, present participle summing up, simple past and past participle summed up)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To produce a total by adding.

   We summed up the donations and found that we had just enough to pay the bills.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To summarize.

   So, to sum up your argument, what you are saying is that it is impossible.

   • 1950 November, H. P. White, “The Furka-Oberalp Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 770:

     To sum up, the Furka-Oberalp Railway is a good example of the adaptation of the rack-and-pinion system to a main line over mountainous terrain.

   • 2011 February 12, Nabil Hassan, “Blackburn 0 - 0 Newcastle”, in BBC‎:

     Best came close to getting on the end of Barton's cross but he was inches away from connecting. It was an incident that summed up Newcastle's afternoon.

Usage notes

• The object can come before or after the particle (for example, we summed the argument up as "think twice" or we summed up the argument as "think twice"; both are idiomatically acceptable in English). If the object is a pronoun, then it must come before the particle (for example, we summed it up as "think twice" is idiomatic but *we summed up it as "think twice" is unidiomatic and solecistic).

Synonyms

• add up
• summarize

Translations

sum up — see summarize