I.up [美 əp, 英 ʌp]副up often appears as the second element of certain verb structures in English (back up, pick up, sit up, etc). For translations, see the relevant verb entry (back, pick, sit, etc).
Each afternoon, we awoke, put on our sunglasses and slowly nursed ourselves onto the streets for some steamed bun that could sop up whatever ailment still existed inside us.
The carbon they'd sop up would give us significant time to keep working on improvements to zero-carbon power and transport technologies without exacerbating climate change.