Word.ws English Dictionary

brushing up

brushing up is the present participle and gerund 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 brushing up

What is brushing up the present participle and gerund of?
Brushing up is the present participle and gerund of brush up.

Words near brushing up in the dictionary

  1. brushing out
  2. brushing over
  3. brushing past
  4. brushing something under the carpet
  5. brushing something under the rug
  6. brushing up
  7. brushing up to
  8. brushingly
  9. brushings
  10. brushite
  11. brushland

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brushing 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: “brushing up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brushing_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.