buck up

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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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, dated) To dress oneself up smartly; compare (obsolete) buck ("a fop, dandy") [c. 1900-1920]
4. (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.

5. (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.'

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

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)