1
: a slowdown or stoppage of traffic, business, or operation (as by a mechanical breakdown)
2
: connection, association
helpful financial tie-ups
3
a
: a cow stable
also
: a space for a single cow in a stable
b
: a mooring place for a boat
tied up; tying up or tieing up; ties up
1
: to attach, fasten, or bind securely
also
: to wrap up and fasten
2
a
: to connect closely : join
tie up the loose ends
b
: to cause to be linked so as to depend on or relate to something
3
a
: to place or invest in such a manner as to make unavailable for other purposes
their money was tied up in stocks
b
: to restrain from normal movement, operation, or progress
traffic was tied up for miles
4
a
: to keep busy
was tied up in conference all day
b
: to preempt the use of
tied up the phone for an hour
1
: dock entry 2
the ferry ties up at the south slip
2
: to assume a definite relationship
this ties up with what I told you before
Synonyms
Examples of tie-up in a Sentence
Noun
a tie-up at the junction of Main and Central has slowed traffic to a crawl
in a tie-up with the film studio, the toy company is producing a whole line of figures featuring characters from the animated movie
Verb
an accident is tying up traffic at 5th and Broadway
Recent Examples on the Web
Melvin Backman, Quartz, 6 May 2024
Try a pair of tie-up knee-high boots in a similar shade with your trench coat, and layer a button-down underneath with a long skirt.
—Kerane Marcellus, Essence, 3 May 2024
The tie-up with Amazon Bedrock will give Appian the ability to host large language models within certain compliance boundaries that customers set, and then privately customize those models.
—John Kell, Fortune, 2 May 2024
This pretty and elegant midi dress features tie-up ribbon straps, a matching (and detachable) waist tie, a square neck, and a ruffled bottom.
—Rachel Simon, Southern Living, 28 Apr. 2024
Spirit and JetBlue have mutually agreed to call off their $3.8 billion merger last month after a federal judge blocked the tie-up on antitrust grounds in January, suggesting that two airlines becoming one would offer fliers too few choices.
—Melvin Backman, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2024
The two companies had once planned for a $3.8 billion merger, but a federal judge blocked the tie-up.
—Melvin Backman, Quartz, 29 Mar. 2024
On Monday, the company said talks for a strategic tie-up had not proved fruitful and the New York Stock Exchange moved to delist its stock, which collapsed and closed Wednesday at 2 cents per share.
—Laurence Darmiento, Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2024
Part of that could be because of traffic tie-ups on the Interstate 95 corridor, a major artery for traffic along the East Coast.
—Mark Thompson, CNN, 27 Mar. 2024
Madeleine Schwartz Soneela Nankani Tanya Pérez Brian St. Pierre, New York Times, 14 May 2024
In the clips, Kardashian is seen in the gym lifting weights while dressed in a black sports bra and leggings, her hair tied up in a bun.
—Catherine Santino, Peoplemag, 13 May 2024
The union filed a lawsuit, and the case has been tied up in court since.
—Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2024
Digitizing your memories:Memories tied up in boxes and boxes of pictures?
—Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 9 May 2024
In all fairness, Richard Gadd (very honestly) put all of the story that there was to tell on screen for us already and tied up all of the loose ends along the way.
—Laura Hampson, Glamour, 6 May 2024
It was all tied up (2-2) going into the final inning...
—Rachel Bernhard, Journal Sentinel, 1 May 2024
She had been tied up with electrical cord and strangled.
—Marc Santia, NBC News, 29 Apr. 2024
Swift's artistry is tied up in her deployment of celebrity, a slippery state in which a real life becomes emblematic.
—Ann Powers, NPR, 19 Apr. 2024
Noun
On his first earnings call since calling off the tie-up, Christie suggested that the true threats to airline competition were the likes of American Air Lines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines, a few rungs up the marketshare ladder from Spirit and JetBlue.
—Melvin Backman, Quartz, 6 May 2024
Try a pair of tie-up knee-high boots in a similar shade with your trench coat, and layer a button-down underneath with a long skirt.
—Kerane Marcellus, Essence, 3 May 2024
The tie-up with Amazon Bedrock will give Appian the ability to host large language models within certain compliance boundaries that customers set, and then privately customize those models.
—John Kell, Fortune, 2 May 2024
This pretty and elegant midi dress features tie-up ribbon straps, a matching (and detachable) waist tie, a square neck, and a ruffled bottom.
—Rachel Simon, Southern Living, 28 Apr. 2024
Spirit and JetBlue have mutually agreed to call off their $3.8 billion merger last month after a federal judge blocked the tie-up on antitrust grounds in January, suggesting that two airlines becoming one would offer fliers too few choices.
—Melvin Backman, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2024
The two companies had once planned for a $3.8 billion merger, but a federal judge blocked the tie-up.
—Melvin Backman, Quartz, 29 Mar. 2024
On Monday, the company said talks for a strategic tie-up had not proved fruitful and the New York Stock Exchange moved to delist its stock, which collapsed and closed Wednesday at 2 cents per share.
—Laurence Darmiento, Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2024
Part of that could be because of traffic tie-ups on the Interstate 95 corridor, a major artery for traffic along the East Coast.
—Mark Thompson, CNN, 27 Mar. 2024
Verb
And that means, as Schmid, the language-attrition expert at the University of York, has pointed out, that the loss of a language can be tied up with emotion too.
—Madeleine Schwartz Soneela Nankani Tanya Pérez Brian St. Pierre, New York Times, 14 May 2024
In the clips, Kardashian is seen in the gym lifting weights while dressed in a black sports bra and leggings, her hair tied up in a bun.
—Catherine Santino, Peoplemag, 13 May 2024
The union filed a lawsuit, and the case has been tied up in court since.
—Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2024
Digitizing your memories:Memories tied up in boxes and boxes of pictures?
—Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 9 May 2024
In all fairness, Richard Gadd (very honestly) put all of the story that there was to tell on screen for us already and tied up all of the loose ends along the way.
—Laura Hampson, Glamour, 6 May 2024
It was all tied up (2-2) going into the final inning...
—Rachel Bernhard, Journal Sentinel, 1 May 2024
She had been tied up with electrical cord and strangled.
—Marc Santia, NBC News, 29 Apr. 2024
Swift's artistry is tied up in her deployment of celebrity, a slippery state in which a real life becomes emblematic.
—Ann Powers, NPR, 19 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tie-up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near tie-up
Cite this Entry
“Tie-up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tie-up. Accessed 18 May. 2024.
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