buck up

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Interjection

buck up

1. (idiomatic) Cheer up; take courage; take heart.
2. (idiomatic, dated) Hurry up; make haste.

Verb

buck up (third-person singular simple present bucks up, present participle bucking up, simple past and past participle bucked up)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To become encouraged, reinvigorated, or cheerful; to summon one's courage or spirits; to pluck up courage.

   I realized I needed to buck up and tackle the problem head-on.

2. (idiomatic, transitive) To encourage; to hearten.

   I knew I had to try and buck up the rest of my team as well.

3. (idiomatic, intransitive) To do better.

   You better buck up or you'll never make it.

4. (idiomatic, intransitive, dated) To dress oneself up smartly; compare (obsolete) buck ("a fop, dandy") [c. 1900-1920]
5. (idiomatic, transitive, colloquial) To pass on to higher authority for resolution. See also pass the buck.

   He started bucking up everything to management when he didn't get a raise.

   He just bucked everything risky up to management.

   Instead of dealing with the customer's complaint himself, he just bucked it up to his boss.

6. (obsolete) To hurry up.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), published 1980, page 141:

     'Now' said Cameron, 'we must buck up; it's getting late. Now about the child, Boshy: she must come with us, you see.'

7. (idiomatic, transitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To hit or fight (someone).

Usage notes

• In the transitive senses, the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.

Derived terms

• buck up one's ideas
• buck up to

Translations

to become encouraged

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: ^{(please verify)} 打起精神 (daa² hei² zing¹ san⁴)

  Mandarin: 打起精神 (dǎqǐ jīngshén)

to encourage or hearten

• Russian: встряхну́ть (ru) n (vstrjaxnútʹ), оживи́ть (ru) n (oživítʹ), приободри́ть (ru) n (priobodrítʹ)