Word.ws English Dictionary

lightening up

lightening up is the present participle and gerund of lighten up.

Meaning of lighten up

Verb

lighten up (third-person singular simple present lightens up, present participle lightening up, simple past and past participle lightened up)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive, transitive) To make (something) or to become less serious and more cheerful or casual; to relax.
    • I wish he'd lighten up a bit and realize that we were only joking.
  2. (transitive) To lighten (something): to decrease its weight.
    • Near-synonym: slim down
    Synonyms:
    slim down

Questions about lightening up

What is lightening up the present participle and gerund of?
Lightening up is the present participle and gerund of lighten up.

Words near lightening up in the dictionary

  1. lighteners
  2. lightenest
  3. lighteneth
  4. lightening
  5. lightening someone's purse
  6. lightening up
  7. lightenings
  8. lightens
  9. lightens someone's purse
  10. lightens up
  11. lighter

Source and license

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