tie up
To occupy, detain, keep busy, or delay.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“My work will tie me up until five o'clock.”
“I cannot meet you for lunch because a long phone call is tying me up all morning.”
“The unexpected legal dispute continued to tie up the company's assets, preventing them from investing in new projects for the remainder of the fiscal year.”
- 01
fit to be tied
Very agitated or distressed; also, very angry; enraged, furious.
- 02
have one's hands tied
To be powerless to act, to be thwarted.
- 03
Peckham Rye
[Cockney slang]tie
- 04
statistical tie
A situation in which the difference in popularity of two options in a poll is less than the margin of error.
- 05
tie in
To fit in or harmonize (with something).
- 06
tie in knots
To put (someone) in a difficult situation.
- 07
tie in with
To become associated with (a person or group of people); to connect with.
- 08
tie one on
To drink alcohol excessively, to the point of being drunk
Last updated August 10, 2026