Word.ws English Dictionary

move up

move up verb: to promote, put onto a higher level.

Verb

move up (third-person singular simple present moves up, present participle moving up, simple past and past participle moved up)

  1. (transitive) To promote, put onto a higher level.
    • […] Queeg was obtaining a command for which he was rather young. “They’re moving you fellows up now pretty fast.”1951, Herman Wouk, chapter 11, in The Caine Mutiny, Boston: Little, Brown, published 2018
    • We were moved up a grade because our teachers thought we country children would make our classmates feel inferior―and we did.1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 10, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, page 61
  2. (transitive) To raise, put onto a higher place.
  3. (transitive) To put higher on a list.
  4. (US, transitive) To reschedule (something) to an earlier date or time.
    • The meeting was moved up to Tuesday.
    • “She’s upset she has to walk me down the aisle,” Serena told Maggie.
      “Oh if only your uncle Maynard would come and do it instead!” Anita cried. “Maybe we should move the wedding up a week and give him another chance […]”1988, Anne Tyler, chapter 3, in Breathing Lessons, Penguin, page 108
    Antonyms:
    move back
  5. (intransitive) To be promoted.
  6. (intransitive) To pass to a higher level.
  7. (intransitive) To move one's position to allow others to occupy a place.
    • Can you move up to the next seat so we can sit together, please?
    • "It's hard to articulate how tightly packed we have become accustomed to - [...] 'Move up, we need to get one more in.' The only picture I can paint is that it is often not possible to reach into my jacket pocket to retrieve my mobile phone, because I cannot raise my arms. Sardines enjoy more...2020 June 3, Philip Haigh, “Who can clean up Manchester's mess?”, in Rail, page 43
    Synonyms:
    move over
  8. (intransitive) To move forward (especially when waiting in a queue / line).
    • I was standing on the platform waiting for the people to let me into the car, and this beast, this conductor, hollered at me, ‘Come on you, move up!’ […] I said, ‘it’s the people ahead of me, who won’t move up,’1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter X, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, page 135

Synonyms of move up

Antonyms

Forms of move up

third-person singular presentmoves up
present participlemoving up
past participlemoved up
pastmoved up

Words formed from move up

Questions about move up

What does move up mean?
Move up means to promote, put onto a higher level.
What part of speech is move up?
Move up is a verb.
What is the past tense of move up?
The past tense of move up is moved up.

Words near move up in the dictionary

  1. move the problem
  2. move the yardsticks
  3. move through the gears
  4. move to
  5. move together
  6. move up
  7. move up in the world
  8. move with
  9. move with the times
  10. move your feet, lose your seat
  11. moveabilities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: move 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: “move up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/move_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.