Word.ws English Dictionary

buckle up

buckle up verb: to fasten with a buckle.

Verb

buckle up (third-person singular simple present buckles up, present participle buckling up, simple past and past participle buckled up)

  1. (transitive) To fasten with a buckle.
    • It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers.1855, Charles Dickens, “The Holly-tree. Third Branch—The Bill”, in Christmas Stories […] (The Works of Charles Dickens; XV), de luxe edition, London: Chapman and Hall, published 1881, →OCLC, page 63
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To fasten one's seat belt or safety belt.
    • Buckle up every time you drive somewhere in a car, and make sure your passengers buckle up, too.
    Synonyms:
    belt up
  3. (broadly, idiomatic, imperative, intransitive, usually) To get ready, to prepare oneself.
    • So buckle up for what's coming, readers!2019 February 27, Robert Kirkman, Outcast By Kirkman & Azaceta #39, Image Comics

Synonyms of buckle up

Forms of buckle up

third-person singular presentbuckles up
present participlebuckling up
past participlebuckled up
pastbuckled up

Questions about buckle up

What does buckle up mean?
Buckle up means to fasten with a buckle.
What part of speech is buckle up?
Buckle up is a verb.
What is the past tense of buckle up?
The past tense of buckle up is buckled up.

Words near buckle up in the dictionary

  1. buckle hats
  2. buckle in
  3. buckle over
  4. buckle to
  5. buckle under
  6. buckle up
  7. buckle-beggar
  8. buckle-beggars
  9. buckleable
  10. Buckleboo
  11. Bucklebury

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buckle 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-buckle up.ogg.

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