Word.ws English Dictionary

grown up

grown up is the past participle of grow up.

grown up is the alternative form of grown-up.

Meaning of grow up

Verb

grow up (third-person singular simple present grows up, present participle growing up, simple past grew up, past participle grown up)

  1. (intransitive) To mature and become an adult.
    • What do you want to be when you grow up?
    Synonyms:
    age, upgrow
  2. (intransitive) To start to develop; to flourish.
    • Socialism grew up in the industrial cities.
    Synonyms:
    blossom, prosper
  3. (idiomatic, intransitive) To stop acting as or like a child (often used as an imperative interjection).
    • Will you grow up please, and stop making silly faces?

See all 4 meanings of grow up

Meaning of grown-up

Adjective

grown-up (comparative more grown-up, superlative most grown-up)

  1. Adult, physically mature.
  2. Of, pertaining to, or suitable for adults.
  3. Having a mature outlook.

See all 4 meanings of grown-up

Forms of grown up

comparativemore grown up
superlativemost grown up

Questions about grown up

What is grown up the past participle of?
Grown up is the past participle of grow up.

Words near grown up in the dictionary

  1. grown like a weed
  2. grown on
  3. grown out
  4. grown out of
  5. grown some balls
  6. grown up
  7. grown ups
  8. grown-ass
  9. grown-up
  10. grown-up point
  11. grown-up points

Source and license

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