mop up

verb mops up · mopping up · mopped up

1. To clean up (liquid) with a mop, rag, sponge, or other cleaning device. Please mop up the spilled milk.
2. informal To fix problems; to correct or repair. After they argued, it fell to me to talk to her and try to mop up.
3. transitive To absorb the leftovers of a dish with bread etc., in order to eat them. He mopped up the sauce with the bread and scarfed it down like he had been raised by wolves.
4. To consume or get rid of an excess of something. The function of the weak acid component of a buffer is to act as a source of H⁺ ions which can mop up any added OH⁻: HA + OH⁻ → A⁻ + H₂O
5. To clean up an area destroyed by a natural disaster or by violent activity. Crew members or leaders of a 20-person organized inter-agency hotshot suppression crew build firelines, conduct burnout operations, and mop up after the fire using chainsaws and hand tools such as Pulaskis and shovels.
6. To finish something off; to apply a finishing touch They patch up, mop up, neaten up the halfcooked and unsatisfactory ideas they find lying around in their head.
7. To get rid of (enemies) within a certain area. No good trying to charge with them. They'd just squeal and bolt, and there are more than enough of these filthy horse-boys to mop up our lot on the flat.
8. To win a competition decisively. John Willment, a Ford distributor in Middlesex, imported a Holman & Moody-prepared Galaxie and – you may recall – let it loose among the 3.8 Jaguar racing contingent. WHAM! It mopped up everything in sight.
9. To pitch the final innings especially of a game that is no longer close.