sum-up

or sum·up

[ suhm-uhp ]

noun

1. the act or result of summing up; summary.

sum up

verb

1. to summarize (feelings, the main points of an argument, etc)

   the judge began to sum up

2. tr to form a quick opinion of

   I summed him up in five minutes

Word History and Origins

Origin of sum-up¹

First recorded in 1890–95; noun use of verb phrase sum up

Idioms and Phrases

Present the substance of, summarize, as in They always sum up the important news in a couple of minutes , or That expletive sums up my feelings about the matter . [Early 1600s]

Example Sentences

The coaches were asked to avoid asking her open-ended questions in the morning and to provide a sum-up at the end of team briefings to ensure they had been understood.

From BBC

The snow clearing is a really useful sum-up of the entire problem.

From Scientific American

In her absence, Mrs. Bindle proceeded to sum-up her character from the evidence that her home contained.

From Project Gutenberg

There was a final sum-up before they voted and I think it was at the beginning of that.

From The Guardian

He grows as serious as ’tis possible for a madman, and pretends to sum-up the whole state of the controversy with the Nonconformists.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• epitomize
• examine
• sum