"buff up" meaning in English

See buff up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-buff up.ogg [Australia] Forms: buffs up [present, singular, third-person], buffing up [participle, present], buffed up [participle, past], buffed up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} buff up (third-person singular simple present buffs up, present participle buffing up, simple past and past participle buffed up)
  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To improve. Tags: idiomatic, transitive
    Sense id: en-buff_up-en-verb-fbjr7Jlg
  2. (transitive) To shine; to make shiny. Tags: transitive
    Sense id: en-buff_up-en-verb-BQES-EwJ
  3. (intransitive, idiomatic) To become more muscular. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive
    Sense id: en-buff_up-en-verb-qEdcQ8Cm
  4. (intransitive, idiomatic) To study hard to learn a particular subject. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive Synonyms: cram
    Sense id: en-buff_up-en-verb-1QXHZoep Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs with particle (up) Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 16 21 23 40 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs with particle (up): 12 16 17 55

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for buff up meaning in English (2.6kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "buffs up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffing up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffed up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffed up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "buff up (third-person singular simple present buffs up, present participle buffing up, simple past and past participle buffed up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2021 October 17, Katrin Bennhold, “Fake Polls and Tabloid Coverage on Demand: The Dark Side of Sebastian Kurz”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "[…] Mr. Kurz was quickly seen in Europe as the poster boy of an ascendant right for a new generation, a political Wunderkind who had salvaged conservatism by borrowing the far right’s agenda, buffing it up and bringing it into the mainstream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To improve."
      ],
      "id": "en-buff_up-en-verb-fbjr7Jlg",
      "links": [
        [
          "improve",
          "improve"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To improve."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "To shine; to make shiny."
      ],
      "id": "en-buff_up-en-verb-BQES-EwJ",
      "links": [
        [
          "shine",
          "shine"
        ],
        [
          "shiny",
          "shiny"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To shine; to make shiny."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "To become more muscular."
      ],
      "id": "en-buff_up-en-verb-qEdcQ8Cm",
      "links": [
        [
          "muscular",
          "muscular"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To become more muscular."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "16 21 23 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "12 16 17 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I'll need to buff up on my Italian before my trip to Genoa.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To study hard to learn a particular subject."
      ],
      "id": "en-buff_up-en-verb-1QXHZoep",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To study hard to learn a particular subject."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "cram"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-buff up.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/28/En-au-buff_up.ogg/En-au-buff_up.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/En-au-buff_up.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "buff up"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "buffs up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffing up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffed up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "buffed up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "buff up (third-person singular simple present buffs up, present participle buffing up, simple past and past participle buffed up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2021 October 17, Katrin Bennhold, “Fake Polls and Tabloid Coverage on Demand: The Dark Side of Sebastian Kurz”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "[…] Mr. Kurz was quickly seen in Europe as the poster boy of an ascendant right for a new generation, a political Wunderkind who had salvaged conservatism by borrowing the far right’s agenda, buffing it up and bringing it into the mainstream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To improve."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "improve",
          "improve"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To improve."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To shine; to make shiny."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "shine",
          "shine"
        ],
        [
          "shiny",
          "shiny"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To shine; to make shiny."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To become more muscular."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "muscular",
          "muscular"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To become more muscular."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I'll need to buff up on my Italian before my trip to Genoa.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To study hard to learn a particular subject."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To study hard to learn a particular subject."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "cram"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-buff up.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/28/En-au-buff_up.ogg/En-au-buff_up.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/En-au-buff_up.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "buff up"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.