Word.ws English Dictionary

brushed up

brushed up is the simple past and past participle of brush up.

Meaning of brush up

Verb

brush up (third-person singular simple present brushes up, present participle brushing up, simple past and past participle brushed up)

  1. To paint, or make clean or bright with a brush.
    • April 10, 1706, Alexander Pope, letter to William Wycherley
      You have commissioned me to paint your shop, and I have done my best to brush you up like your neighbours.
  2. (idiomatic) To review; to improve an existing but rusty or underdeveloped skill.
    • I'll need to brush up (on) my Greek before my trip to Athens.
    Synonyms:
    rub up
  3. (slang, transitive) To beat up, annoy or insult (someone).

Questions about brushed up

What is brushed up the simple past and past participle of?
Brushed up is the simple past and past participle of brush up.

Words near brushed up in the dictionary

  1. brushed past
  2. brushed something under the carpet
  3. brushed something under the rug
  4. brushed trapdoor spider
  5. brushed trapdoor spiders
  6. brushed up
  7. brushed up to
  8. brusher
  9. brushers
  10. brushes
  11. brushes aside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brushed up (page history and authors); brush 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: “brushed up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brushed_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.