buck up
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Interjection
Verb
buck up (third-person singular simple present bucks up, present participle bucking up, simple past and past participle bucked up)
- (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.
- (idiomatic, transitive) To encourage or refresh; to hearten.
- I knew I had to try and buck up the rest of my team as well.
- (idiomatic, intransitive, dated, early 1900's) To dress oneself up smartly; compare (obsolete) buck ("a fop, dandy")
- (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.
Usage notes
- In the transitive senses 2, 4 the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
Translations
to become encouraged
|
to encourage or refresh
|
Categories:
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English interjections
- English multiword terms
- English idioms
- English dated terms
- English verbs
- English phrasal verbs
- English phrasal verbs formed with "up"
- English intransitive verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English colloquialisms
- English phrasal verbs with particle (up)
- English sentences