What is the meaning of made up?
This is an excerpt from a novel.
He smiled as he made up her plate. Stir-fry. Salmon. Kale. Then she, as she sat down to make up her plate. Other green stuff. The most green of them. He crushed cashews in his fist and sprinkled them on top, then placed the plate in front of her. Cockpit!
She is the wife.
What does “made up” mean?
Edit:
I looked up make up on OALD, and my guess is that number 2 of the definitions fits most appropriately to the context?
- To make products out of many different things,
from different things. to put together a product from several different things. to put an idea together from multiple different things.
Generally “your intuition is correct” is that certain things are “normal” in some respects. What is made up? More specifically, it simply seems to have the meaning of make, just as some people say clean while others say clean up.
I am an old-school teacher. My wife found it old-fashioned. Here is an instance from a 19th-century trial, It
has been stated by your lordship, that the first question at the trial was, whether it was the duty of the accountant in the payoffice, to make up the ex-paymaster’s accounts.
Note that the usage here is pretty similar: the phrase implies that the accounts are being created, not falsified. Interestingly, your example comes from a somewhat recent work published. I suppose it might still be used more frequently in certain styles of English.
