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Finish up   /fˈɪnɪʃ əp/   Listen
Finish up

verb
1.
Finish a task completely.  Synonyms: clear up, finish off, get through, mop up, polish off, wrap up.
2.
Finally be or do something.  Synonyms: end up, fetch up, finish, land up, wind up.  "He wound up being unemployed and living at home again"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Finish up" Quotes from Famous Books



... needy. The Yule festivities are prolonged for two weeks in many places, during which the people visit from home to home and enjoy many social pleasures. The devout attend church services each day, abandon all work so far as possible, and on January thirteenth generally finish up the ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of respectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki. There we carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless quid pro quo's of uncouth words,—in ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... taste, and fit only for the perquisite of scouts. Then there would be a deep Yorkshire pie, or reservoir of potted game, as a piece, de resistance, and three or four sorts of preserves; and a large cool tankard of cider or ale-cup to finish up with, or soda-water and maraschino for a change. Tea and coffee were there indeed, but merely as a compliment to those respectable beverages, for they were rarely touched by the breakfast eaters of No. 3 staircase. Pleasant ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... woe? O God! methinks it were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain, To sit upon a hill as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run: How many make the hour full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times: So many hours must I tend my flock, So many hours must I take my rest, So many hours must I contemplate, So many hours must I sport myself; So many ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... his men that they would be out there soon and thrash him out of Manassas. Some of these gallant men came for thirty days, others for ninety, our wise rulers being satisfied in their own mind that the latter number of days would be quite enough to finish up the small job of putting down the rebellion. These militiamen wore gay and many-colored uniforms, and had the fat of the land for rations. They were the nation's favored guests, and every man was set down for a gentleman and a ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams

... "Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together," he cried, "when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way." But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all communication with his ward ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... a little of this but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for in those days, because of our old duodecimal ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... best-constructed comedies in any language; for not only has it a unified and well-ordered plot, but it does not stop with the final fall of the curtain. Most plays by attempting to finish up the story with smooth edges, leave an impression of artificiality and unreality, for life is not done up in such neat parcels. The greatest dramas do not solve problems for us, they supply us with questions. In "Revizor," ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... merry little finish up, oh, that was awfully smart!" continued Nana. "It appears to have been terrible enough to give you the shudders! He sent everybody away and boxed himself up in the place with a lot of petroleum. And it blazed! You should have seen it! Just think, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... to make? First, we are going to finish up, and carry out into all desirable species, our great idea of an iron slave, the illustrious Man Friday of our modern civilization. Whether we put water, air, or ether into his aorta, as the medium of converting heat into force, we shall at last have a safe subject, available for all sorts of drudgery, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... neither take nor hold the rendering coat unless lime has been applied beneath it to stick the two substances together, and make them unite. After spreading the rendering coat upon this, apply layers of burnt brick mortar instead of sand mortar, and finish up all the rest in the manner described above for ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... the chauffeur, using the stump of his nineteenth cigarette to light the twentieth. "If we finish up on two wheels we will reach him." And reach him they did in a small village half a dozen leagues farther on, where they pulled up, white with dust from head to ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... and especially Rand, felt themselves to be to a certain extent responsible for the situation in which they found themselves that they readily agreed to turn to and exert themselves to the utmost to finish up the work of preparing the camp for the ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... If you've got a drop of man In your greasy, thieving carcass, Finish up what you began." Fiercer grew his coarse invective, Louder yet his taunting calls, When no answer to his challenge Came from out the low sod walls. Uncontrolled, his furious anger Spoke in quick and murderous roar As he pumped his ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... unofficially, that the decree of the Audiencia sent to Arqueros ought to have been addressed to himself, as being the ruler of the vacant see of Nueva Segovia. He also states that Pardo ordered Arqueros (who had come to Manila to consult him) to set out within a week for Ilocos and finish up his business there; but the latter could not obey this order ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... have taken it for granted that you preferred to finish all the lower portion of the staff while the work was held in the chuck. I have assumed that you prefer to work in this way because I have noted the fact that nine watchmakers out of every ten start with, and first finish up, the lower portion of the staff. Where this method of working originated I do not know, but it always has the appearance to me of "placing the cart before the horse." I do not pretend to say that a true staff cannot be made in this way, but it certainly is not the most convenient nor advisable. ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall

... the hot air the hours drag on. One, two, three o'clock. Then, "one bell." No breeze yet. I finish up, score my log on the black-board—Sea water 90 deg., discharge 116 deg.—and call the Second. He is awake, panting in the hot oven of his berth. If I wish him a merry Christmas he will murder me. I slink below again, and have a sea bath. Even salt water at 90 deg. Fah. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... night, assaulting every belated colored man who came along. The next morning the dregs of the populace, and some respectable looking men again assembled around the doomed hall, but the usual meetings were held, and even the convention of women assembled in the lecture room to finish up their business. The evening was to have been occupied by a public meeting of the Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia, but as the day waned to its close, the indications of approaching disturbance ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... would drive through the city and finish up at the gardens, before going on to dine at the Palace. That would be Aruna's moment for slipping away. Roy—having slipped away in advance—would rejoin her at a given spot. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... she widna hae ye for her first, Pete," replied Sam'l, in one of those happy flashes that come to some men, "but there's nae sayin' but what she micht tak' ye to finish up wi'." ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... de year wuz out. W'en de Bad Man got in de do', de blacksmif wuz poundin' 'way at a hoss-shoe, but he wa'n't so bizzy dat he didn't ax 'im in. De Bad Man sorter do like he ain't got no time fer ter tarry, but de blacksmif say he got some little jobs dat he bleedzd ter finish up, en den he ax de Bad Man fer ter set down a minnit; en de Bad Man, he tuck'n sot down, en he sot in dat cheer w'at he done conju'd en, co'se, dar he wuz. Den de blacksmif, he 'gun ter poke fun at de Bad Man, en he ax him don't he want a dram, en won't he hitch his cheer up little nigher ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... sitting around the camp-fire, discussing the war, telling stories, etc., Captain Conkey said to Booth: "Captain, it won't require more than half an hour in the morning to inspect the papers and finish up what you have to do; why don't you start your escort out very early, so it won't be obliged to trot after the ambulance, or you to poke along with it? You can then move ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... said Miss de Lisle. "She has been under great strain ever since the news of Mr. Jim came. And she is only a child. She can't go through all that and finish up by nursing a fever patient—and then avoid paying ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... their fortune, and whence they never returned). "Children always leave their parents sooner or later; old and young people aren't meant to stay together. And then, what if he were dead?" she would finish up with savagely, and her mistress could say ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... or you was gwine to lose a hand and maybe a arm. You had to jump in dem old cotton presses and tread de cotton down by hand. It tuk most all day long to gin two bales of cotton and if dere was three bales to be ginned us had to wuk most all night to finish up. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... fresh, I shall dwell as little as possible upon them; it will be sufficient that I make a rough sketch of the face of the Court, and of the conduct of the several parties during that time. Your memory will soon furnish the colours which I shall omit to lay, and finish up the picture. ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... whatever they may be. But I'd do more to be in sight of Patricia Moore's profile which is about all I see of her in the car these days when (in every sense of the word) I'm obliged to take "a back seat." Do, for heaven's sake, finish up your end of the business and give me a free hand, since you yourself say I may in honour take it. I probably should take it even if you said the opposite—that I tell you frankly, as I believe I've told you before. But it's ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... will think it thoroughly over; and if we choose something reasonable, and not unwholesome, may we make what we wish, just to finish up well?" ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... as she disliked to approach Shade with any request, Johnnie continued to urge him whenever they met to finish up the indicators and let her have them back again. Then Hartley Sessions promoted her to a better position in the weaving department, and other cares drove the matter ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... To finish up our stay at Rio, we gave the emperor and his family, and the whole of society both foreign and Brazilian, a ball on board our ship. Towards the end of the evening, I turned a young lion I had been given in Senegal loose in the ball-room, and his appearance somewhat disturbed the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... course he'd got quite a lot of patience, he'd been married a number of years) he managed to git through without jumpin' off the boat and tacklin' the job of buyin' 'em, but said to himself, "If my life is spared to finish up that bizness I'll come back and buy ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... heard politics mentioned since we left Washington, that we were tired out after Congress completed its work and made up a party and started off merely for rest and recreation. I remarked that I had been in every state in the Union but one, and wanted to finish up the list by seeing Florida. A colloquy as given by the reporter was ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... "and I think he is perfectly splendid. You are a lucky girl, Kate. But oh, do you know that Sidney is actually at Harbour Hill, too, or at least quite near it? I had a letter from him yesterday. He has gone down there to spend his vacation, because it is so quiet, and to finish up some horrid scientific book he is working at. He's boarding at some little farmhouse up the shore. I've written to him today to hunt you up and consider himself introduced to you. I think you'll like him, for ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... I will make arrangements. Either you may join Anne and Letitia in town, and learn the business they are learning; or if you like any other business better, I will try and arrange it for you. Let me know to-morrow morning what you decide upon, and I will finish up the matter at once. I am quite tired of the present state of ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner

... Nor (to finish up this point) can it be said that it is the essential nature of manifesting agents to manifest things in so far as the latter have their abode in the former; for such a relation is not observed in ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Sunday for the Cape, so I will finish up. If you have not already written to me at that place, direct your letters to H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," Sydney (to wait arrival). We shall probably be at the Cape some weeks surveying, thence shall be take ourselves to the Mauritius, and leave a card on Paul and Virginia, thence on to Sydney; ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... had taken the day to finish up a large pile of "back numbers" of his favorite daily, "but I think hardly just to the Indians. Horace Greeley has given a great deal of thought to this Indian question, and although he would disapprove of supplying them with arms and ammunition, yet in all other matters ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... touch a thing, either one of you! When the Doctor told me to take charge of his things, I took it. There ain't ever been a word of complaint since I come here, and I ain't goin' to have one at this here late date. There's the Doctor now comin' up the steps; I'll finish up here later. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... went forward one morning on a circle through the hills, He was gay and full of glee, and free from earthly ills; But when it came to finish up the work on which he went, Nothing came back from him; for his ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... the evening's entertainment had reached the restaurant stage, "this is our twenty-fifth anniversary. It's our silver wedding, without the silver and the wedding. We'll have a bottle of champagne. That makes it almost legal. And then suppose we finish up by having the wedding. The silver can ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... great concern that Miss Lyman's health is so much worse, that she is about to leave Vassar. Is this true? I can not say I should be very sorry if I should hear she was going to be called up higher. It seems such a blessed thing to finish up one's work when the Master says we may, and going to be with Him. I can fully sympathise with the feeling that made Mrs. Graham say, as she closed her daughter's eyes, "I wish you joy, my darling!" But I should want to see her before she went; that would ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... little ahead of time," went on the twins' father. "But I am going to take my family off to the country, so I thought I would come and see you, and finish up our ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope

... used to play under this platform jumping from one support to another and then finish up by running down the steps and cavorting joyously under the falls. I used to get the drinking water for the workmen from the springs that seeped out everywhere along near where my father worked. Once ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... in that?" said the Count. "The cost is great and the bother greater yet; I want to finish up, but the stupid old gentleman is obstinate; he foresaw that he could tire me out. Indeed I cannot hold out longer, and to-day I shall lay down arms and accept such conditions of agreement as ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... fight! Tennelly sent 'Whisk' for a whole basket of superannuated cackle-berries"—he motioned back to a freshman bearing a basket of ancient eggs—"we're going to blindfold Steve and put oysters down his back, and then finish up with the fire-hose. Oh, the seven plagues of Egypt aren't in it with what we're going to do; and when we get done if Little Stevie don't let out a string of good, honest cuss-words like a man then I'll eat my hat. Little Stevie's got good stuff in him if it can only be ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... "you see those hundreds of dancing savages. I want you to plant your rockets in such a manner that they will rake through the whole crowd; and if they should finish up by setting fire to the huts, so much the better. Fire the rockets, one after another, as rapidly as possible, and the moment that the last rocket has been fired we will spring out into the open and make a dash for those posts, to ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old. I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache . . . I stopped, I stared. . . . By all the gods! 'twas Julot the apache. "I'm in the garden way," he ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... old times," he said. "And to finish up with Tippengray, I'll say that if Lodloe and I had not our mind so filled with our own businesses and projects, I'd get him to go in with me, and help make up a class; but if I were to do that, perhaps people might say that all I wanted was to ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... sorry I didn't finish up those dishes. Let them go till I return. I wish you would, dad, and come along with me." His voice had a ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... the 'Oceana' from Boston on Wednesday; and that is the reason, Aunt Hannah, why I am so hurried; you see I must reach Washington to-night so as to finish up my business there, and take the early train for the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... any judge of what 'll be the state of Bat Reeves's feelin's in general when he gets back to the village, the Reeves family will finish up by lickin' each other—and when they make a lawsuit out of that it will be worth while wastin' a few hours in court to listen to. How do ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... one!' and now's the time to settle, And finish up the business to a dot; A half a million men, upon their metal, Accounts will soon square ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... institution started with the returned Boxer Indemnity Fund; it's a high school with about two years college work; they have just graduated sixty or seventy who are going to America next year to finish up. They go all around, largely to small colleges and the Middle West state institutions, a good many to Tech and a number to Stevens, though none go to Columbia, because it is in a big city; just what improvement Hoboken ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... audience is applauding a palpable "hit," it does not seem an appropriate time to stop and take one's seat; but it often is the best course. To do this appears so abrupt that the novice is apt to make a further effort to finish up the subject till he has finished up his audience as well. An attempt to fully discuss a topic, under such circumstances, is not successful once in a hundred times. The best course is to follow an apt story by some proverb, a popular reference, or ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... look for the vife an' kid," he said. "Ay ban as gude as dead already; but"—he hesitated—"Ay hate to think of the hyenas. Von't you finish up this job?" ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Arthur," he remarked. "No more time. But I'll try to squeeze in a minute or two, while they are here, to finish up these last ones." ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... much money left over, Garry, from the 'fill' and tunnel work, if we keep on. We ought to have a cyclone next to finish up with; we've had about ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... a chair. "Yes, do tell me!" I said; "I have really very little to do this morning, but finish up a ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Parisian than most French people, to call for her at the restaurant and take her on to join a party at the Cafe Royal. She, therefore, could not go yet, and she begged Lady Sellingworth to stay on and to finish up the evening in the company of Georgians at little marble tables. But Lady Sellingworth laughingly jibbed at the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... "What behaviour?" asked Mr. Hine, unconscious of any possible cause of offence. "What! didn't you hear us? Where do you sleep?" "In front. Why?" "Why? Because before breaking up at three this morning we said, 'Let's give Hine three cheers to finish up with;' which we did, with an unearthly noise, and danced a solemn dance on the pavement, and sang you songs fortissimo, and altogether made a diabolical uproar." "Never heard a sound," said Hine. Meadows ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... good advice for sure, very good, On de cellar, bread an' water—it 'll do, De nice sweet castor ile geev' heem ev'ry leetle w'ile, An' de jail to finish up wit' w'en he 's t'roo! Ah! ma frien', you never see Dominique, W'en he 's lyin' dere asleep upon de bed, If you do, you say to me, "W'at an angel he mus' be, An' dere can't be ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond

... 'til the blood spurted all over his body, the bull whip cutting in deeper all the time. He finish up the whipping with a wet coarse towel and the end got my brother in the eye. He was blinded in the one eye but the other eye is good enough he can see they ain't no use trying ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... straw bag towards him. "I couldn't eat all mine. My wife was too generous to me. P'raps you could help me out with it. I don't like to take any home—it kind of hurts my wife's feelings if I do. She thinks I'm ill, too. Can you finish up what's left?" ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... fancied himself as a shot. He told me his terrier puts up otters pretty often in the streams in the jungle, in family parties, greatly to the amusement of the otters. So there's another heading for a game book here; that might begin with elephant and finish up with mouse-deer and button-quail. What a list of water-fowl there would be, and where would turtle go?—under Game or Fish? They lay their eggs on the sandbanks in numbers, and these fetch quite a big price, four annas each. I'd willingly sacrifice a night's sleep to see one come out ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... a plan," resumed Miss Craydocke, as Leslie took the measure of a buttonhole and began. "Change of work is as good as a rest. So I've had them down here on the curtain among the girls. Next, I'm going to have a bee. I've got some things to finish up for Prissy Hoskins, and they're likely to be wanted in something of a hurry. She's got another aunt in Portsmouth, and if she can only be provided with proper things to wear, she can go down there, Aunt ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... their heads on the rare occasions when they were asked to take a fare there. Explorers to whom a stroll through the Australian bush was child's-play, had been known to spend an hour on its trail and finish up at the point ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for the sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the Wouldbegoods, and there are no more chapters after this. But Oswald hates books that finish up without telling you the things you might want to know about the people in the book. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit



Words linked to "Finish up" :   move, complete, act, cap off



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