add up
verb
added up; adding up; adds up
1
a
: to come to the expected total
the bill doesn't add up
b
: to form an intelligible pattern : make sense
her story just doesn't add up
2
a
: amount sense 1b
—used with to
the play adds up to a lot of laughs
b
: to amount to a lot
just a little each time, but it all adds up
: to form an opinion of
added him up at a glance
Synonyms
Examples of add up in a Sentence
whether we take the 4:00 train or the 4:15 bus, it adds up to the same thing: they both get us back too late
even if we pool all our money, it won't add up to enough to rent a beach house for a week
Recent Examples on the Web
New Haven buyers also have the option of finishing the lower level to add up to two bedrooms, a bathroom, family room, and bar for a total of 2,287 square feet.
—
Weichert Realtors® Welch & Company, Kansas City Star, 2 June 2024
That can add up to a major additional annual expense for owners: The typical single-family homeowner with a mortgage backed by Freddie Mac was paying $1,522 in 2023, up from $1,081 in 2018.
—Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 29 May 2024
This is one reason why — despite their ability to produce long sequences of text — even LLMs cannot yet produce completely coherent novels or long stories: small deviations from a true prediction over time tend to add up and yield extremely large deviations over long-horizons.
—IEEE Spectrum, 28 May 2024
San Diego police and Coronado police have both refused to pick up the case during that time, and the chief of police of Coronado, June Jordan, who was trained by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and knows Alton, admits that something doesn’t add up here.
—Lisa Deaderick, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for add up 
Weichert Realtors® Welch & Company, Kansas City Star, 2 June 2024
That can add up to a major additional annual expense for owners: The typical single-family homeowner with a mortgage backed by Freddie Mac was paying $1,522 in 2023, up from $1,081 in 2018.
—Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 29 May 2024
This is one reason why — despite their ability to produce long sequences of text — even LLMs cannot yet produce completely coherent novels or long stories: small deviations from a true prediction over time tend to add up and yield extremely large deviations over long-horizons.
—IEEE Spectrum, 28 May 2024
San Diego police and Coronado police have both refused to pick up the case during that time, and the chief of police of Coronado, June Jordan, who was trained by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and knows Alton, admits that something doesn’t add up here.
—Lisa Deaderick, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for add up
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'add up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Add up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/add%20up. Accessed 5 Jun. 2024.
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