sweep up

phrasal verb

swept up; sweeping up; sweeps up

: to remove dust, dirt, etc., from (something) by using a broom or brush

When I was sweeping up, I found an earring that I had lost.

Can you please sweep up the porch?

: to remove (something, such as dust, dirt, etc.) from a surface by using a broom or brush

She swept up the broken glass.

: to pick up (someone or something) in one quick, continuous motion

She swept the baby up and carried her to the crib.

: to brush or pull (hair) away from the face

—usually used as be swept up

Her hair was swept up in a bun.

Examples of sweep up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Editors’ Picks The middle child and only son of a college professor and high school English teacher, White was a devoted student and shy child who slowly got swept up by rock and country — Charley Pride and the Rolling Stones first, punk later. —

Grayson Haver Currin, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2024 Catch jazz, funk, blues, and brass bands at Blue Nile, and you'll immediately be swept up in the Frenchmen Street atmosphere. —

Maya Kachroo-Levine, Travel + Leisure, 19 Mar. 2024 When he's not being swept up in furious action scenes, Murphy has a quiet, watchful presence, portraying a man fully lost in an unfamiliar and savage world. —

Danny Horn, EW.com, 7 Mar. 2024 Even in the United States, culture is swept up in political agendas. —

Suzanne Nossel, Foreign Affairs, 29 Feb. 2024 Taylor Swift swept up the most awards, taking home four gongs. —

K.j. Yossman, Variety, 29 Feb. 2024 County officials are investigating her death as storm-related but have stopped short of specifically saying whether she was swept up in swift water or flooding. —

Teri Figueroa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Feb. 2024 Instead, the two men appear to have been swept up in Nigeria's broad actions to ban cryptocurrency exchanges amid a drastic devaluation of the country's national currency, according to the Financial Times, which was first to report the two executives' detention without identifying them. —

Andy Greenberg, WIRED, 12 Mar. 2024 Bayern’s approach for much of this century has been to sweep up the best talent from its domestic rivals and turn itself, in effect, into a Bundesliga all-star side. —

Rory Smith, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sweep up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.