To buy up something is to purchase the entire supply of it. Not some — all of it.
It is used about land, property, stock and shares, and it usually implies deliberate accumulation, so an investor buying up flats in a town is doing something people notice and often resent. It splits round an object. The related phrases are worth keeping apart, since buying out means purchasing somebody's share of a business and buying into means acquiring a stake, or accepting an idea.
1phrasebuy upTo purchase all or most of the available supply of something.
“A single firm managed to buy up half the street.”
From buy + up.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 30 of A Man Called Ove.
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