Word.ws English Dictionary

brightening up

brightening up is the present participle and gerund of brighten up.

Meaning of brighten up

Verb

brighten up (third-person singular simple present brightens up, present participle brightening up, simple past and past participle brightened up)

  1. (intransitive) To become brighter
  2. (transitive) To make cheerful.
    • Her kindness brightened up my day.
  3. (intransitive) To become more attractive.

Questions about brightening up

What is brightening up the present participle and gerund of?
Brightening up is the present participle and gerund of brighten up.

Words near brightening up in the dictionary

  1. brightener
  2. brighteners
  3. brightenest
  4. brighteneth
  5. brightening
  6. brightening up
  7. brightenings
  8. brightens
  9. brightens up
  10. brighter
  11. brightest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brightening up (page history and authors); brighten 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.

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