Definition of "make up" [make up]

• To constitute; to compose; to form (verb)
• To compensate, fill in or catch up (verb)
• To invent, imagine, or concoct (a story, claim, etc.) (verb)
• To assemble, or mix (verb)
• To apply cosmetics or makeup (verb)

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• "She gets going each day by around noon and spends what stamina she has left volunteering at the Lupus Foundation of Mid and Northern New York, which has become her “baby,” although it can hardly begin to make up for the fact that “the chance to be a mother has been stolen from me.”"
• "Kerr had to find a way to prompt these undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells to differentiate into motor neuron cells in such a way that they would go on to create axonal nerves covered with myelin sheaths—a fatty insulating tissue—that together make up the elaborate electrical highway that constitutes the nervous system."
• "The final step in food processing is the addition of vitamins and minerals, to make up for what was lost during the initial heat-stripping phase."