plumber up

plumber up (third-person singular simple present plumbers up, present participle plumbering up, simple past and past participle plumbered up) (transitive, rare)

1. (slang) To botch or ruin.
   • 1956 May, “Whatever Happened to the Waveoff?”, in A. B. Young, Jr., editor, Approach: The Naval Aviation Safety Review, volume I, number 11, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, column 2:

     When a pilot no longer heeds the demands of vanity or misplaced pride; when he attempts not to salvage a plumbered-up approach with a desperate bit of squirming and jockeying, but rather shrugs it off as a well-deserved object lesson in complacency and tools around the circuit again—then he is a real pro.

   • 1963 January 24, Patty Johnson, “Marketwise: Hurry! Get in before prices change!”, in Waterloo Daily Courier, Waterloo, Ia., →OCLC, page 8, column 6:

     Even bananas are in trouble, though not from the weather. The maritime strikers have “plumbered up” the shipping situation to the extent that the demand far exceeds the supplies.

   • 1964, John McCone, McCone Papers (CIA History); quoted in David Robarge, John McCone As Director of Central Intelligence, 1961–65, Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2005, footnote 65, page 371:

     I do not think we should pull any punches in laying out the failures of Lodge to utilize the Station properly, the damage done by “blowing” covert assets…and the fact that MACV plumbered up a lot of very good work on the part of the station as a result of [redacted]…

   • 1966, Baynard Kendrick, chapter 22, in Flight from a Firing Wall (A Special Inner Sanctum Mystery), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →LCCN, →OCLC, book III (Cuba), page 164:

     The Palace of Justice! This was where the cabo had told me I was to receive a fair trial and be shot immediately. The jota boys had certainly plumbered things up for me. It looked like I had come to some sort of an end, even if it hadn’t been a perfect day.

   • 2007 December 11, foamy, “Too funny, Burrows on a breakaway..........”, in alt.sports.hockey.nhl.vanc-canucks‎^[1] (Usenet), archived from the original on 6 October 2025:

     ....... did anyone actually move to the edge of their seat or think there was a chance in hell he'd score ? I was typing a response to an ss post, and didn't even bother to look until the last second to see how he'd plumber it up.

   • 2009 February 11, Rubber Ducky [pseudonym], “USS Port Royal Hard Aground” (comment), in Joel Kennedy, The Stupid Shall Be Punished‎^[2], archived from the original on 16 February 2009:

     When Charlie White was the Ops boss at SubPac, he met with my PCO class (he'd had a great tour as CO WAHOO). He said this about commanding a submarine: "Command is easy ... if you don't plumber it up ... so don't plumber it up." […] Rather than over-analyze this, let's just admit that this guy 'plumbered it up.'

2. (colloquial) To work on (something) as a plumber; to equip (something) with plumbing.
   • 1931 October 1, W. F. Fox, Jr., “A Corner in Pigskin”, in The Indianapolis News, last edition, volume LXII, number 255 (19,315 overall), Indianapolis, Ind., →OCLC, section 2, page 9:

     The tooth was not pulled but the dentist found a couple of cavities which he plumbered up a little.

   • 1965 February 4, “Block of Hope”, in Daily News, volume 46, number 192, New York, N.Y.: News Syndicate Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 37, column 1:

     And when the job is done and the inhabitants are settled in their shined-up, painted-up and plumbered-up dwellings, it will be interesting and important to see what percentage of these places is kept by their occupants in that condition, and what percentage is allowed to sag swiftly back to slumminess.

   • 1997, James A. Hotz, O. Victor Miller, chapter 2, in Where Remedies Lie, Leesburg, Ga.: Caduceus Press, →ISBN, page 10:

     He knocked out three or four of Marvin’s teeth, jabbing around, trying to plumber up that rock of cocaine.

   • 2008 July 25, Cinthia Ritchie, “Historic Seward rail car to get new life as a diner”, in Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage, Alas., →ISSN, →OCLC, page A-5, column 1:

     The diner will seat 45, and a kitchen and storage area will soon be built on to the back. The car already includes a single bathroom, still intact. “It’s ready to be plumbered up,” [Jack] Powers said. If all goes well, the father-and-son team hopes to open the family-oriented diner by June 2009.