Turn-up
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Fabric turned up at the bottom of trousers to make them shorter.
"Why does all this fluff accumulate in the turn-ups?"
- 2 A fight or disturbance. dated
"I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat’rally unfort’nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink—which was almost always—my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time."
- 3 The next card taken from the top of a pack of cards and displayed.
"I'll bet $10 that the next turn-up is an ace."
- 4 A stroke of good luck; something that appears unexpectedly; especially in turn up for the book. figuratively
"Despondent settled down favourite, but ran badly, and the fielders had a fine turn up by the success of Carlton Spring, on whom Allsopp jumped off in front and stayed there."
- 5 A book, intended for children, with flaps that can be lifted to reveal underlying text or images. historical
"Books with flaps which lifted up and down and known as "turn-ups" came about in 1795 and were listed in Laurie and Whittle's catalogue."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Why does all this fluff accumulate in the turn-ups?"
Etymology
Deverbal from turn up.
More for "turn-up"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.