Word.ws English Dictionary

beefing up

beefing up is the present participle and gerund of beef up.

Meaning of beef up

Verb

beef up (third-person singular simple present beefs up, present participle beefing up, simple past and past participle beefed up)

  1. (slang, transitive) To strengthen or reinforce; to add substance to.
    • We need to beef up security around the airport.

Questions about beefing up

What is beefing up the present participle and gerund of?
Beefing up is the present participle and gerund of beef up.

Words near beefing up in the dictionary

  1. beefiest
  2. beefily
  3. beefiness
  4. beefing
  5. beefing out
  6. beefing up
  7. beefings
  8. beefish
  9. beefishness
  10. beefless
  11. beeflessness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beefing up (page history and authors); beef up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “beefing up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beefing_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.