roll up v.
1. (orig. US) to congregate, to assemble.
 | How He Died 26: The miners all rolled up to see the fun. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Out for the Coin 55: Over and above home comforts I could roll up just eleven hundred dollars. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Such is Life 5: Roll up, Port Phillipers! the Sydney man’s goin’ to strike a match! | |
| 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.
| 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. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | 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. | |
| Pink ’Un and Pelican 210: I rolls up and touches for a pony. | |
| Bulldog Drummond 162: Incidentally, boys, how did you manage to roll up this morning? | |
| Carry on, Jeeves 130: I’ll roll up for that lunch. | |
| May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 3:8: A very swell car rolled up containing 4 people. | |
| Mistral Hotel (1951) 180: I hope her husband doesn’t roll up here. | |
| ‘Welsh Rabbit of Soap’ in Nine Men of Soho 36: Probably she’d roll up next day. | |
| Hustler 143: The police rolled up! | |
| False Starts 355: One morning they called me to roll it up. | |
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 137: roll up the sudden appearance of a group of kids on a scene. | |
| Corner (1998) 50: She [...] watches as the knockers roll up to the carryout. | |
| Way Home (2009) 222: A car, three deep, rolled up on him in while he was walking to his aunt’s house. | |
| (con. 1972) What It Was 109: I went to the spot and they rolled up on me [...] Took me into an alley. | |
| 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].
| 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. | |
| in 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.
| 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? | |
| 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].
| Silent Terror 68: Plunkett, Willkie and Flores, roll it up for classification. | |
| Monster (1994) 197: You got three minutes by Gangsta time to roll yo’ shit up, bitch! | |
| (con. 1975–6) 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. | |
| 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. | |
| ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] Pack up ! You’re outta here! [...] Roll your mat! | |
| 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].
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 roll up Definition: to get ready to fight. Example: Yo bitch, you frontin’? Roll up mothafucka! |