Meaning

7 senses

  1. (intransitive)To become straight, or straighter.

  2. (ambitransitive)To steer straight.

    13 October 2010, Blackpool Gazette, 'Bad driving' led to biker death crash He said "As I came out of the bend I went to straighten up the car and it just seemed to be carrying on turning."

  3. (intransitive)To sit up straight, to stop hunching.

  4. (transitive)To deal with; to put in order.

    1994, Mccook Daily Gazette, Jul 12, 1994, Mail Delivery Trying To Get Up To Speed The Postal Service sent a special task force to straighten up the city's problems with a back-to-basics approach

  5. (transitive)To tidy; to tidy up.

  6. (transitive)To clarify.

  7. (idiomatic, intransitive)To start living a reformed life; to adopt a more honest and respectable course of behavior.

More definitions
  • straighten oneself

Examples

35 sentences

  1. Tom straightened up his desk.

    Том навів лад на своєму столі. — deniko

    deTom räumte seinen Schreibtisch auf. — brauchinet

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  2. Tom is straightening up his room.

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  3. Tom is now straightening up his room.

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  4. Tom spent most of the morning straightening up his office.

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  5. Tom will probably end up in prison if he doesn't straighten up.

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Forms

straightens up, straightening up, straightened up, straightened up
Base formstraighten up · to straighten up
3rd person singularstraightens up
Present participlestraightening up
Past simplestraightened up
Past participlestraightened up

irregular

Present simpleLesson

I, you, we, theystraighten up
he, she, itstraightens up

Past simpleLesson

all personsstraightened up

Present perfectLesson

I, you, we, theyhave straightened up
he, she, ithas straightened up

Future simple (will)Lesson

all personswill straighten up

Phrasal verbs

2 phrasal verbs

Synonyms

2 synonyms
Close in meaning

Lessons for this word

3 lessons

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
straightA2straightenB2straightforwardB2strainB1

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

straighten up — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto