Locks up Synonyms, Locks up Antonyms

Synonyms for locks up

verb confine; put in jail

Antonyms for locks up

Word Origin & History

"means of fastening," Old English loc "bolt, fastening; barrier, enclosure," from Proto-Germanic *lukan (cf. Old Norse lok "fastening, lock," Gothic usluks "opening," Old High German loh "dungeon," German Loch "opening, hole," Dutch luik "shutter, trapdoor"). "The great diversity of meaning in the Teut. words seems to indicate two or more independent but formally identical substantival formations from the root."

The Old English sense "barrier, enclosure" led to the specific meaning "barrier on a river" (c.1300), and the more specific sense "gate and sluice system on a water channel used as a means of raising and lowering boats" (1570s). Wrestling sense is from c.1600. Phrase under lock and key attested from early 14c.

Example Sentences for locks up

How it hardens the heart, and locks up all the avenues of pity!

Each combatant has one, and Truth has the third, which she often locks up for ever in her quiet breast.

Schlssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a cupboard, while thinking of something else.

He goes to bed early, as everybody around here knows, and locks up.

And yet we see that all this vast spiritual edifice, like the arches of its own great cathedrals, locks up upon a single keystone.

Love unlocks the lips that else were ever dumb: “Love locks up the lips whence all things good might come.”

This one never lets me have a penny of my own: and she locks up my best suit when she goes from home.

She is a crazy wench, that Mnemosyne; she throws her jewels out of the window and locks up straws and old rags in her strong box.

What can man do in the Arctic circle against the cold that locks up whole continents in ice?

Wuz dey anythin' else you wanted, jedge, 'fore I locks up the back of the house an' lights out?