eat up

Verb

eat up (third-person singular simple present eats up, present participle eating up, simple past ate up, past participle eaten up)

1. (ambitransitive) To consume completely.
   • He was so hungry that he ate up everything on his plate.
   • Dinner is served. Eat up!
2. (figuratively, slang, transitive) To cause (someone) to obsess; to figuratively consume (someone).
   • His anger has been eating him up.
3. (figuratively, transitive) To subtract, use up.
   • His behavior has eaten up all the goodwill we felt towards him.
   • The powerful car ate up the miles.1934, Frank Richards, The Magnet: The Mystery of the Vaults
4. (figuratively, informal, transitive) To accept or believe entirely, immediately, and without questioning.
   • She ate up everything that her image consultant said.
5. (slang, transitive) To acclaim or praise (someone or something); to consume (absorb information).
   • They eat up every book he puts out.
   • There are a number of subsidiary plots and characters that don't ring entirely true, and the ending is straight out of “The Perils of Pauline,” but I ate it all up anyway, because in the last analysis the opera has a kind of honest, disarming sentimentality.1977 November 13, Robert Sherman, “Beguiling ‘Devil's Disciple’”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2025
6. (US, informal, transitive) To find something to be very cute.
   • You're so cute, I could just eat you up!
7. (figuratively, slang, transitive) To go quickly on a route.
   • We ate up the road to Pennsylvania.
   • You're gonna have to eat up the whole way there.
8. (slang, transitive) To be very good at; to succeed at; to smash. (Compare eat and leave no crumbs.)
   • One fan shared a snippet from the music video wherein Jungkook and Han So-hee are drowning in water. Despite the catastrophic situation, the lovers are squabbling with each other. The fan commented: “The laundromat cause they ate that up”.2023 July 14, Anwaya Mane, ““THEY ATE THAT UP”: BTS’ Jungkook’s fans lavish praise on Bangtan’s maknae and Han So-hee’s crackling chemistry in SEVEN MV”, in Sportskeeda
9. (informal, slang) To completely dominate someone else, especially with a comeback or clapback.
   • Girl, you ate him up!