get up
Formsgets up, getting up, got up
Formsgets up, getting up, got up
- 1To rise from bed, usually after waking, in order to start the day.
We didn't get up until noon the day after the wedding.
On weekends he rarely gets up before ten.
Similarrise
Note
Waking up and getting up are two moments, and English keeps them apart: you can wake at six and not get up until seven. William James, in The Principles of Psychology (1918), describes the gap between them, the freezing room without a fire and the hour spent lying in bed while everything within protests against the ordeal of rising.
- 2To rise from a sitting or lying position and stand on one's feet.
Get up off the floor before somebody trips over you.
The boxer was knocked down twice but got up both times.
Similarrise
- 3To move upward, ascending or climbing to a higher place.
The truck struggled to get up the steep, icy hill.
It took the climbers six hours to get up the north face of the mountain.
Oppositedescend
Note
Up works as a preposition in this sense, with the slope or obstacle as its object: a tired horse gets up and over a hurdle, someone has difficulty getting up the stairs, a train gets up an incline. That object is what separates it from the standing-up meaning, where up stands alone and the movement is only from sitting or lying to standing.
- 4Alternative spelling of getup.
She arrived in a full cowboy get-up, spurs and all.
The magazine's new get-up uses bold photos and much shorter articles.
Note
The hyphen is the only difference from getup, and both spellings cover the same nouns: an outfit, often a showy one, a magazine's layout and production style, and informally a fight. The plural is get-ups. Written open, as two words, get up is the verb, and the outfit noun pairs naturally with the dressing-up verb.
- 5To dress in a particular way, especially in showy or extravagant clothes.
The guests were gotten up in feathers and sequins for the gala.
He showed up at the reunion gotten up like a 1970s rock star, cape and all.
Note
Dressing up lives mostly in the passive and the reflexive: someone is all got up in frills, or gets himself up for a party, with the pronoun between get and up. The participle splits by country, got up in British use and gotten up in American, as in Jonathan Cross's 1973 description of a man gotten up in mod capes. The phrase often carries a note of amusement.
- 6
- 7To come into being and grow stronger, as a wind or storm does.
A stiff breeze got up in the afternoon and filled the sails.
The sailors watched the sky, worried the wind would get up before they reached shore.
Similarrise, strengthen, freshen
- 8To meet with someone, get to know them, or hang out with them.
He got up with a few old teammates while he was home for the holidays.
Text me when you land, and we'll get up with the rest of the crew downtown.
Similarmeet
Note
In American slang it means meeting up, and the person comes after with: he got up with a few old teammates while he was home. It belongs to talk between friends; in formal writing, meet or get to know is the safer choice. Naming the person matters, because without one the phrase falls back to rising from a bed or a chair.
- 9To annoy someone.
Well, Beaver said at last. Somethin′s got up him. Like you said—people have regrets.
2002, Tim Winton, “Four”Note
The shape matches the "criticize" meaning, get up plus the person, but the subject can be a thing or a mood rather than a critic: in Tim Winton's Dirt Music, Beaver decides "Somethin's got up him". The subject tells them apart. Someone who gets up you is telling you off; something that gets up you is getting under your skin.
- 10To have sex or penetrate someone sexually; also, to have a sexual or romantic fling with someone.
Note
The slang ranges from sex itself to a passing fling, and it belongs only to very casual talk. Because the same words also mean meeting up with someone in American slang, and plainly mean rising from bed, a listener depends on context to catch the sexual meaning; in writing, have sex says it without the guesswork.
- 11
- 12To move forward toward the goal one's team is attacking.
With ten minutes left, the fullbacks began to get up in support of every attack.
He won the ball in midfield, but none of his teammates got up quickly enough to give him a pass.
Similaradvance
Note
Football commentary uses it for players who push forward to join an attack, typically in the phrase get up in support. In Jonathan Stevenson's 2011 BBC report on Arsenal and Manchester City, the team-mates had been run into the ground and no one could get up in support of the winger. Its counterpart is getting back, when the same players drop deep to defend.
- 13To gather or build up gradually, growing larger bit by bit.
It took her a whole semester to get up the courage to speak in class.
On cold mornings the old engine was slow to get up steam.
Note
The locomotive's phrase is the model: an engine gets up a good head of steam before it can move. The same picture of pressure gathering slowly carries over to people, who get up a temper or get up the courage to speak, always with the thing that builds as the object and always with a sense that it took time.
- 14To criticize someone, usually for something they have done.
The skipper got up him in the dressing room for dropping that catch.
My flatmates always get up me about the washing-up.
Note
British and Australian talk builds it with the person straight after up: the skipper got up me, she'll get up you, and the reason follows with for or about. A telling-off can carry respect, too: in Ian Healy's Hands and Heals, the moment Rod got up him, Healy knew he was rated. Elsewhere, criticize or tell off is the clearer choice.
- 15To succeed or win, as a team does in a match or a proposal does in a vote.
Few pundits expected the independent to get up, but she took the seat easily.
If the vote gets up, the pub will finally be allowed to open on Sundays.
Note
Australians use it across sport and politics: a team gets up in a close match, a referendum gets up when it passes, and in H. G. Nelson's The Fairytale (2021) a minister rants about what would happen "if Labor got up". It takes no object, so whatever wins is the subject; outside Australia, win or pass is the word a listener will understand.
- 16To leave a place or head somewhere else.
Once the music died down, the whole crew got up out of the club and headed downtown.
Grab your jacket, we need to get up out of this place before the rain starts.
Note
African American Vernacular English uses it for leaving, typically followed by out of: we better get up out of here. The out of does the steering, turning the phrase from rising to going; without it, a listener is more likely to hear the plain standing-up meaning. It is slang, at home in speech and dialogue rather than formal writing.
- 17To get excited about something, take action on it, or become aware of it.
When word spread that the rec center might close, the whole block started to get up on saving it.
Once he got up on how the stock market worked, he started investing.
Note
The thing comes in with on or with, as in get up on your game or get up with your career, and the phrase often sounds like a push to get serious. Watch what follows with: a goal or a skill gives this sense, while a person gives the slang for meeting up. It shares its vernacular home with the word for leaving.
- 18To get out of prison.
When my cousin gets up next month after serving his sentence, the whole family is throwing him a party.
Word is he might get up this spring if the parole board lets him go.
Note
Prison never needs naming here: when everyone knows a man is locked up, when he gets up simply means when he is released. The verb takes no object, and it comes from the same vernacular slang as the word for leaving, so it belongs to speech and to dialogue that reproduces it.
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