sb. (a.) [f. tie up: TIE v. 11.]
I. Something tied up, or used for tying up.
† 1. = TIE-WIG. Obs.
1714. C. Johnson, Country Lasses, II. i. The last tye-up I sold you was as light and bright as silver … with a fine flowing large open curl.
2. A ribbon with which some part of a child’s dress is tied or fastened up.
1896. Blackw. Mag., Oct., 520/2. The little ones … rejoice in clean ‘bishops’ and ‘tie-ups’ of various hues.
1909. Daily Chron., 18 Nov., 7/1. Brief drawing-room appearances in a nurse’s arms with robes and tie-ups—blue for a boy, pink for a girl.
3. An animal tied up as a bait for a beast of prey.
1895. Mrs. B. M. Croker, Village Tales (1896), 27. Where’s the chap with the buffalo—-where is our tie-up? Ibid. It will be an awful sell if there is no tie-up, and the tiger happens to go by.
4. Bookbinding. pl. Tapes or ribbons attached to a portfolio, book-cover, etc., as a fastening.
1896. D. Reeves’ Catal., Sept., 11/1. Parchment, with silk tie-ups. Ibid. (1902), Jan., 10/2. 4 sheets and a plan of London, 1572,… in portfolio with tie ups, 21s.
II. Act of tying up, or state of being tied up.
5. slang. a. A finish, conclusion, ‘wind-up.’ b. Pugilism. A knock-out blow, a ‘finisher’: cf. TIE v. 11 g.
1818. Sporting Mag., II. 211. He knobbed his adversary well, and floored him by a smart tye-up at the fourth buttonhole. Ibid. (1829), XXIV. 99. By way of a tie up to the concern … the Ladies’ Purse of 50£ for the beaten horses was offered.
6. A stoppage of work or business, esp. on account of a lock-out or strike.
1889. Sci. Amer., 19 Jan., 32/3. In the event of a ‘tie-up,’ or strike.
1894. Times, 14 July, 7/1. [The Great Northern Pacific Railroad] could not afford to face a tie-up.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 30 June, 11/3. No such ‘tie-up’ has ever before been known in the American cotton industry.
7. A condition of being ‘tied up’; entanglement.
1906. Statesman (Calcutta), 30 Sept., 3/7. She had no desire, she said, to ‘get into any more domestic tie ups.’
III. 8. as adj. Constructed by tying up.
1881. Cheq. Career, 43. Thirty whares [houses] with their usual tie-up fences around them formed the outside Pab.
