bundle up

To bundle up can mean either to gather things into a bundle or to dress warmly, often in several layers. The verb bundle comes through Middle English bundel, from Middle Dutch bondel or Old English byndele, byndelle, meaning a binding or fastening with bands; both are traced to Proto-Germanic *bundil-, a derivative of bundą, “bundle.” Up descends from Old English upp through earlier Germanic forms, with the supplied etymology tracing it back to Proto-Indo-European upó, “up.” The phrase’s recorded history is not established here, but a 1916 quotation by Alice Hale Burnett already uses bundle up in the warm-clothing sense: “Come, boys, bundle up well, because it's going to be a cold drive.”