(idiomatic, transitive) To fasten (a piece of clothing, etc.); to tighten (a nut etc.)
Help me do up this zipper.
You hold it in place while I do up the nut.
I can't do up my shirt. The button is missing.
(colloquial, idiomatic, transitive) To redecorate (a room, etc.); to make improvements to (a home or domestic property).
I'm going to do up the living room next.
So many people were doing up their apartments that supplies of high-grade fixtures and fittings were at a premium. 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 3:
If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds, — because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands. 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
They've done up the house so that they can sell it more easily.
Near-synonyms: fix up, spruce up, vamp up
(idiomatic, informal, transitive) To execute a task or performance; to execute it well.
This time I'm going to do it up right.
Previously they had cut corners on the dinner menu, but this time they really did it up.
(idiomatic, transitive) To pack together and envelop; to pack up, tie up, or both.
I did up the parcel with string and took it to the post office.
(dated, transitive) To accomplish thoroughly.
(archaic, transitive) To starch and iron.
a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 20, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
(slang) To beat up; to physically assault.
(transitive) To style (someone's hair); (especially) to give someone (i.e., oneself or another) an updo.