send up

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

send up (third-person singular simple present sends up, present participle sending up, simple past and past participle sent up)

1. (transitive) To imitate (someone or something) for the purpose of satirical humour.

   The programme accurately sends up the British Civil Service system at Whitehall.

   • 2004 November 18, William Cook, “All in the worst possible taste”, in The Guardian‎:

     It started out running adverts that sent up the products they were supposed to be promoting. Today you scarcely see an advert that isn't sending up itself.

   • 2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian‎:

     He had more fun co-writing and directing two series for the BBC called Ripping Yarns (1976-79) in which Palin starred as a series of heroic characters in mock-adventure stories, among them Across the Andes by Frog, and Roger of the Raj, sending up interwar literature aimed at schoolboys.

2. (transitive, US, slang) To put in prison.

   The judge sent him up for three years.

   • 1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, Carroll & Graf, published 1997, →ISBN, page 161:

     "I guess you're a wise one, all right, but what's the use? I tell you we've got enough on you already to send you up. You might as well talk straight."

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see send,‎ up.

   Fears of war sent oil prices up by 10%.

• In all senses the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
• In sense 2, the passive form is much more common.

• ends up, unsped, up-ends, upends, upsend