buy up

See also: buyup

English

Etymology

From buy +‎ up.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

buy up (third-person singular simple present buys up, present participle buying up, simple past and past participle bought up)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To buy the whole of; to purchase the entire stock of something.

   The marshland was bought up by a housing company.

2. (idiomatic, transitive) To buy whatever is available of something.
   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

3. (idiomatic, transitive) To buy off; to pay in blackmail money or similar.
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap.