The Oxford Thesaurus An A-Z Dictionary of Synonyms INTRO ...

a piece of (one's) mind, tell (someone) a thing or two, rake
(someone) over the coals, jump on or all over, bawl out, US chew
out: The boys were soundly upbraided for going near the railway
tracks.
upbringing
n. rearing, raising, training, education, cultivation, nurture,
breeding: The way one behaves through life is really a matter
of upbringing.
upheaval n. upset, unrest, commotion, change, cataclysm, disruption,
disturbance, disorder, confusion, chaos, furore, or US furor:
Those were times of drastic political upheaval in Asia.
uphold v. support, maintain, sustain, preserve, hold up, defend,
protect, advocate, promote, espouse, embrace, endorse, back,
champion, stand by: All demagogues claim to uphold democratic
principles.
upkeep n. 1 maintenance, repair, support, sustenance, preservation,
conservation, subsistence, running, operation: The upkeep of
the infrastructure came to ten per cent of the annual budget
last year. 2 (operating) costs, (running) expenses, outlay,
expenditure, Brit overheads, oncosts, US overhead: Have you
included upkeep in the annual expenses?
upper adj. 1 higher (up), loftier, topmost, more elevated, uppermost:
Air is less dense in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Our flat
is on an upper floor. Her best notes are sung in the upper
register. 2 higher, upland, more elevated; (more) northerly,
northern: We visited the cataracts on the upper reaches of the
Nile. We spent the holiday in upper Canada. 3 later, more
recent: These strata were laid down in the Upper Cretaceous
period. 4 upper case. capital letter(s), capital(s), majuscule
(letters or characters): The heading ought to be in upper case.
5 upper crust. upper class, ‚lite, aristocrats, nobles, blue
bloods, wealthy, US Four Hundred: Gregory thinks of himself as
a member of the upper crust and won't associate with us. 6 upper
hand. advantage, control, authority, power, sway, superiority,
supremacy, command, dominance, ascendancy, Colloq edge: Purvis
kowtows to whoever has the upper hand.
--n. 7 on (one's) uppers. poor, indigent, destitute,