Word.ws English Dictionary

gin up

gin up verb: to generate, devise, or create.

Verb (1)

gin up (third-person singular simple present gins up, present participle ginning up, simple past and past participle ginned up)

  1. (Canada, US, informal, transitive) To generate, devise, or create.
    • Near-synonym: spin up
    • So as the six-year conceptual design phase ends next month, and the design teams face extinction, the partners […] have begun frantic efforts to keep ITER alive, ginning up concepts for an "ITER light" that promise to cut costs in half while providing most of the features of the full-fat version.1998, Science & Government Report, volume 28, page 10
  2. (informal) To set up a snare.
  3. (informal) To exaggerate.
  4. (informal) To stir up, stimulate, enliven, incite.

Verb (2)

gin up (third-person singular simple present gins up, present participle ginning up, simple past and past participle ginned up)

  1. (dated, informal, transitive) To make drunk, especially on gin.
    • Harrison was pretty well ginned-up when his guests arrived and he had proffered drinks freely and hospitably ever since.1925, J. Allan Dunn, The Three Traders
    • "You go slow on the gin, auntie," said Dr Grimsby. "If you hadn't been ginned up you wouldn't have fallen down those stairs."1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 35

Synonyms of gin up

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of gin up

third-person singular presentgins up
present participleginning up
past participleginned up
pastginned up

Origin of gin up

From gin (short for engine or generate) + up.

From gin (the drink) + up.

Questions about gin up

What does gin up mean?
Gin up means to generate, devise, or create.
What part of speech is gin up?
Gin up is a verb.
What is the past tense of gin up?
The past tense of gin up is ginned up.

Words near gin up in the dictionary

  1. gin rummy
  2. gin sling
  3. gin slings
  4. gin spinner
  5. gin spinners
  6. gin up
  7. gin's piss
  8. gin-and-It
  9. gin-and-Its
  10. gin-clear
  11. gina

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gin 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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