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setup.

Equipment designed for a particular purpose; an apparatus.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsɛtʌp/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsɛtʌp/Canada, General-American[ˈsɛɾʌp]Canada, General-American/ˈsetɐp/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Equipment designed for a particular purpose; an apparatus.

    The laboratory included an elaborate setup for measuring the energy.
  2. The fashion in which something is organized or arranged.

    The classroom setup was simple and efficient.
  3. A situation orchestrated to frame someone; a covert effort to place the blame on somebody.

    Trust me, that was a setup!
  4. An installer.

  5. The process or instance of arranging resources for performing a specific operation, as a run of a particular product.

    A simple setup on the bottling line involves reloading bottles and labels; emptying, cleaning, and reloading the tanks; and a test run.
  6. The tendency of persistent wind to produce higher water levels at the downwind shore of a body of water and lower at the upwind shore.

    There was a strong wind setup at the south end of the lake after a day of northerly gales.
  7. A move or set of moves which are meant to draw out a reaction which leaves an exploitable opening in defense.

    The jab is most commonly used as a setup for other strikes.
Where this word comes from

Deverbal from set up.

verb/ˈsɛtʌp/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsɛtʌp/Canada, General-American[ˈsɛɾʌp]Canada, General-American/ˈsetɐp/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Misspelling of set up.

    alt-of · misspelling
Where this word comes from

Deverbal from set up.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.