Word.ws English Dictionary

dust-up

dust-up is the alternative spelling of dustup.

Meaning of dustup

Noun

dustup (plural dustups)

  1. (informal) A scuffle or fight.
    • Mik looked at his arm and knew this wouldn't work for another dustup with the she-hemoth that was hot on his heels. He put his shield on the damaged arm. It felt strange since he usually wore it on his left.2014 September 9, Patrick M. Robbins, Supergatory, iUniverse, →ISBN
  2. (broadly, informal) An argument or dispute.
    • The incident followed other dustups between the two parties over the conduct of the war on terrorism.2005 June 21, Seattle Times

Forms of dust-up

pluraldust-ups

Origin of dust-up

Deverbal from dust up.

Questions about dust-up

What is dust-up the alternative spelling of?
Dust-up is the alternative spelling of dustup.

Words near dust-up in the dictionary

  1. dust-offs
  2. dust-out
  3. dust-outs
  4. dust-ridden
  5. dust-tight
  6. dust-up
  7. dust-ups
  8. dustable
  9. dustbag
  10. dustbags
  11. dustball

Source and license

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