fess up

See also: 'fess up

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Aphetic form of confess up.

Verb

fess up (third-person singular simple present fesses up, present participle fessing up, simple past and past participle fessed up)

  1. (intransitive, slang) To confess to something; to admit something.
    • 1918, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 26, in The Winds of Chance:
      "‛Fess up," she persisted. "Have you boys been quarreling again?"
    • 2008, Barack Obama, "Barack Obama's president-elect press conference - 18 December 2008":
      And you know, one of the things that I hope is that the American people will find when we make a mistake, we're willing to fess up to it and change.
    • 2009 February 26, Roy Furchgott, “You’ve Sold Your Stocks. Now What?”, in New York Times:
      “I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was happening in the financial industry, and I came to the conclusion that people weren’t fessing up,” he said.

Translations

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