English
throw up
Verb

throw up

  1. Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see throw, up
    • The servant who had first entered had thrown up the window […]
  2. (now colloquial) To vomit.
    The baby threw up all over my shirt.
    That cat is always throwing up hairballs.
  3. To produce something new or unexpected.
    This system has thrown up a few problems.
  4. To cause something such as dust or water to rise into the air.
    The car wheels threw up a shower of stones.
  5. (transitive, mostly, dated) To erect, particularly hastily.
    • 1872, Every Saturday (page 96)
      Every depression in the ground had been utilized; every rise taken advantage of, to dig rifle-pits or throw up a little earthwork, surrounded with sand-bags […]
    • 2001, Diane Kennedy, Loop-Holes of the Rich: How the Rich Legally Make More Money & Pay Less Tax, Warner Books, ISBN 0446678325, page 70,
      In other words, a business can throw up a huge detour sign in the way of the government.
    • 2007, Marissa Monteilh, Dr. Feelgood, Kensington Books, ISBN 0758211228, page 27,
      The deal was that if anyone started catching feelings, he could throw up a stop sign and the other would honor it.
  6. (ambitransitive) To give up, abandon something.
    • 2011, Alan Bennett, "Baffled at a Bookcase", London Review of Books, XXXIII.15:
      In 1944, believing, as people in Leeds tended to do, that flying bombs or no flying bombs, things were better Down South, Dad threw up his job with the Co-op and we migrated to Guildford.
  7. To display a gang sign using the hands
    • 2005, Brandon Bennett, Moon in Gemini, iUniverse, ISBN 059536442X, page 56,
      Why don't you go on and throw up ya gang sign. Represent your hood, homey?
  8. (dated, transitive) To enlarge, as a picture reflected on a screen.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations
  • Spanish: construir rápidamente y mal
Translations Translations
  • Spanish: echar barrio
Noun

throw up (uncountable)

  1. (colloquial) Vomit.
    We had to scrub the seats for throw up when we left the dog in the car.


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