stop up

English

Verb

stop up (third-person singular simple present stops up, present participle stopping up, simple past and past participle stopped up)

1. To fill a hole or cavity, or block (an opening or passage), as with a plug.

   Coordinate terms: plug up, stop off

   • 1885, Mark Twain, chapter 37, in Huckleberry Finn:

     So then we […] scratched around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as we could.

2. (UK, law) To permanently close or block (a road or path); to legally extinguish a right of way.

   Coordinate terms: block off, close off

3. (photography) To increase the aperture of a photographic lens, moving from an f/stop represented by a higher number to an f/stop represented by a lower number and causing more light to pass into the camera.
   • 2002, Kathleen Tracy, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Portrait Photography, →ISBN, page 18:

     To stop down means to narrow the aperture; to stop up or open up means to expand it.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “increase the aperture of a photographic lens”): stop down

Translations

to fill a hole or block an opening or passage

• Bulgarian: запушвам (bg) (zapušvam)
• Esperanto: ŝtopi (eo)
• Latin: obtūrō

Anagrams

• post up, post-up, top-ups, tops up, topups