buff up

English

Pronunciation

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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.
   • 2021 October 17, Katrin Bennhold, “Fake Polls and Tabloid Coverage on Demand: The Dark Side of Sebastian Kurz”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     […] 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.

2. (transitive) To shine; to make shiny.
3. (intransitive, idiomatic) To become more muscular.
4. (intransitive, idiomatic) To study hard to learn a particular subject.

   Synonym: cram

   I'll need to buff up on my Italian before my trip to Genoa.