built-up

See also: built up

English

Alternative forms

• built up, builtup

Adjective

built-up (comparative more built-up, superlative most built-up)

1. Made of sections or layers, one on top of the other.
   • 1951 June, “British Railways Standard Class "5" 4-6-0 Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 400:

     Built-up weights in the wheels balance the revolving and 50 per cent of the reciprocating weight.

   • 2003, Roselynn Ederer, Saginaw County, Michigan:

     Lyness' built-up pilings were not high enough to keep the ground floor above water during this flood.

   • 2009, Richard Philp, Catskill Village:

     The picture below dates to about 1860 and shows the Point not too many years after the construction of the Long Dock, seen here as a strip of built-up roadway just wide enough for two horsedrawn wagons to pass each other.

   • 2014, Nicholas Romanov, Kurt Brungardt, The Running Revolution:

     Forget any idyllic Garden of Eden of running when we ran barefootand naked before Adam plucked a shoe with a built-up heel from the tree of running.

   • 2014, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Never Cross a Vampire:

     Gunther's car was a '38 Oldsmobile with a built-up seat and special elongated pedals put on by Arnie the garageman for a reasonable price.

2. Having increased in size, quantity, or intensity over time; accumulated.
   • 2008, Mary Higgins Clark, Where Are You Now?:

     The stained-glass windows were cleaned; years of built-up soil removed from the murals; the wooden pews sanded and refinished, the kneeling benches covered with soft new carpeting.

   • 2011, Ruth Snowden, Understanding Jung:

     His analytical method gradually strips away built-up defensive layers of the personality until we are able to see our true selves.

   • 2012, Jan Murray, Mum, Baby & Toddler:

     This slowed entry into the bowel reduces built-up gas and runny poos which leads to a happier, more contented baby.

   • 2014, Kelly Carrero, Paradox:

     All the built-up passion that I'd put to rest when I fell asleep last night came back with full force.

3. Constructed or enhanced.
   • 2012, Tabor Evans, Longarm and the Sins of Laughing Lyle:

     She picketed the skewbald paint with the others, then filled the coffeepot at the creek and started a fresh batch brewing on the built-up fire.

   • 2012, J. Troy, Christian Approaches to International Affairs:

     World society, as Williams puts it, 'is something of which we need to be suspicious because of the risks that its pursuit may create for the painfully built-up and relatively fragile structures of order that exist among states.

   • 2015, Murtaza Haider, Getting Started with Data Science: Making Sense of Data with Analytics:

     Model 3 presents an amazing illustration of all else being equal where I regress the housing prices as a function of number of bedrooms and the square footage of the built-up area of the house.

4. (of an area of land) Having buildings, especially having residences and high population density.
   • 2012, SK Webb, The Deviant Apparition:

     It was all more built-up, she claimed, more busy; and there were objects around which were new and unidentifiable.

   • 2012, Meg Henderson, Chasing Angels:

     As they left the built-up centre of Glasgow the buildings gradually thinned out, and there was a feeling of light and space that she had never experienced before.

   • 2014, James F. Dunnigan, Daniel Masterson, The Way of the Warrior:

     Back then, any built-up place with walls surrounding it and a population of over ten thousand people was considered a “city.”

5. (British) (of an area of land) Having street lights and therefore subject to a 30 mph speed limit.
6. (Europe) (of an area of land) Having specific traffic signaling and therefore usually subject to a maximum 50 km/h speed limit.

   He contended that the speed limit of 80 km/h on motorways, outside a built-up area, which concerns inter alia goods vehicles did not apply to such a vehicle, which is subject to the limits relating to passenger cars.

   Contra-flow cycling is most often applied on basic cycle network links in low-speed local access roads, both within and outside the built-up area.

Anagrams

• upbuilt