Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to congregate, to assemble.

1887		J. Farrell How He Died 26: The miners all rolled up to see the fun.
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 55: Over and above home comforts I could roll up just eleven hundred dollars.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 5: Roll up, Port Phillipers! the Sydney man’s goin’ to strike a match!
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 144: The Wonder Worker from Ceylon will now cut this beautiful girl in halves. Roll up! Roll up!

2. (also roll it up) to arrive, to appear; thus as n., an arrival.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 9/1: It was only an average crowd that rolled up to see ‘Pink Dominoes’ at the Opera House on Saturday night.
1890		Sporting Times 8 Feb. 3/3: And so to the Alcazar, where, by great good luck, we rolled up just in time for a nice, quiet pas de quatre, two gentlemen and two ladies.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 210: I rolls up and touches for a pony.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 162: Incidentally, boys, how did you manage to roll up this morning?
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 130: I’ll roll up for that lunch.
1937		Jennings & Madge May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 3:8: A very swell car rolled up containing 4 people.
1940		S. Lister Mistral Hotel (1951) 180: I hope her husband doesn’t roll up here.
1946		J. Maclaren-Ross ‘Welsh Rabbit of Soap’ in Nine Men of Soho 36: Probably she’d roll up next day.
1952		W.R. Burnett Vanity Row 183: ‘A prowl rolled up right beside the drain and when the guy with the gun looked out of the man-hole there they were’.
1965		H. Williamson Hustler 143: The police rolled up!
1976		M. Braly False Starts 355: One morning they called me to roll it up.
1989		(con. 1982–6) T. Williams Cocaine Kids (1990) 137: roll up the sudden appearance of a group of kids on a scene.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 50: She [...] watches as the knockers roll up to the carryout.
2008		G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 222: A car, three deep, rolled up on him in while he was walking to his aunt’s house.
2012		G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 109: I went to the spot and they rolled up on me [...] Took me into an alley.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 607: ‘We don’t want to roll up looking like tramps’.

3. (Aus.) to pack one’s belongings before leaving [the rolling up of one’s pack].

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Oct. 14/4: [I] told him that if he didn’t give me the straight tip about doctoring the stuff he could roll up and ‘clear.’ Was then informed that cold-tea was the proper ‘fake,’ and I got that shearing through all right.
1944		in A. Marshall These Are My People (1957) 145: I could see the best thing I could do was toddle, so I rolled up and snatched it.

4. to die.

1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 93: Me father was killed there [...] In the last war. I was born after he rolled up. [Ibid.] 321: Mean she’s going to roll up?
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 87: ‘He rolled up’ or ‘he pegged out’ mean a person has died.

5. (US prison, also roll it up) of an inmate, to leave the prison, whether temporarily (for a court appearance) or permanently (after completing a sentence or moving to a new prison); to move from one cell to another [the old practice of rolling up one’s mattress on every occasion of leaving one’s cell].

1986		J. Ellroy Silent Terror 68: Plunkett, Willkie and Flores, roll it up for classification.
1993		K. Scott Monster (1994) 197: You got three minutes by Gangsta time to roll yo’ shit up, bitch!
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 28: If they don’t roll ya up it’s [i.e. a chess match] on like Vietnam, two outta three for a pack.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 13: ‘Roll it up,’ I have come to learn, means the same thing to all convicts in all jails and prisons: you are moving! Gather up up your state issue — sheets, towel, blanket, mattress — and personal belongings, if any, and go somewhere and wait.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] Pack up ! You’re outta here! [...] Roll your mat!
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 30: Twenty minutes later another guard told me to roll up. I’d done nine months on a two-year jolt.

6. (US black) to prepare to fight [i.e. roll up one’s sleeves].

2000

Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 roll up Definition: to get ready to fight. Example: Yo bitch, you frontin’? Roll up mothafucka!