put up to
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Verb
put up to (third-person singular simple present puts up to, present participle putting up to, simple past and past participle put up to)
- (idiomatic) To encourage or trick (someone) to perform an action which is foolish or wrong.
- 1895, Stephen Crane, "A Mystery of Heroism":
- "He's goin' to that well there after water."
- "We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness."
- "Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."
- 1896, Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Detective, ch. 11:
- "I done the other things—Brace he put me up to it, and persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and I'm sorry I done it."
- 1936 Dec. 21, "Foreign News: Gloucester," Time (retrieved 2 July 2015):
- This week in London the hero of Mayfair matrons is the next-to-youngest brother of Edward VIII, His Royal Highness Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. . . . Gloucester's young Scottish Duchess put him up to telling the King-Emperor after Mrs. Simpson's departure (TIME, Dec. 14), "You are a damn fool if you run after her now!" For his pains, Gloucester got slapped.
- 2008 April 29, Marc Lacey, "'Virtual kidnappings' in Mexico play on very real fears," New York Times (retrieved 2 July 2015):
- [T]hree suspects were brothers, ages 19, 31 and 34, who were caught collecting money squeezed from a victim. The two younger brothers blamed their older sibling, who has been in and out of prison for years, for putting them up to it.
- 1895, Stephen Crane, "A Mystery of Heroism":
Usage notes
- Usually followed immediately by the pronoun it, whose antecedent is given in the context.
Synonyms
- (lead by persuasion or influence): entice, induce, inveigle
Further reading
- put up to at OneLook Dictionary Search
- put someone up to at OneLook Dictionary Search