Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

sum

2 verb
     
sum2 past tense and past participle summed, present participle summing

sum up

phrasal verb
1 to give the main information in a report, speech etc in a short statement at the end [= summarize]:
Gerald will open the debate and I will sum up.
to sum up
To sum up, for a healthy heart you must take regular exercise and stop smoking.
sum something ↔ up
In your final paragraph, sum up your argument.
2 when a judge sums up or sums up the case at the end of a trial, he or she explains the main facts of the case ➔ summing-up
3

sum something ↔ up

to describe something using only a few words:
The city's problem can be summed up in three words: too many people.
4

sum something ↔ up

to show the most typical qualities of someone or something:
That image sums up the whole film.
5

sum somebody/something ↔ up

to form a judgment or opinion about someone or something:
Pat summed up the situation at a glance.
6

that (about) sums it up

spoken used to say that a description of a situation is correct:
'So you want us to help you change but you don't believe change is possible?' 'That about sums it up.'
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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