Word.ws English Dictionary

opened up

opened up is the simple past and past participle of open up.

Meaning of open up

Verb

open up (third-person singular simple present opens up, present participle opening up, simple past and past participle opened up)

  1. (ambitransitive) To open.
    • Some vacancies have opened up due to retirements.
  2. (ambitransitive) To widen.
    • The corridor gradually opened up into a triangular room.
  3. (transitive) To bring up (a topic etc.).
    • Mr Hollyer opens up three excellent reasons why this man might wish to dispose of his wife. If we accept the suggestion of poisoning—though we have only a jealous woman's suspicion for it—we add to the wish the determination.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
  4. (ambitransitive) To reveal (oneself); to share personal information about oneself; to become communicative.
    • After three hours of questioning, he finally opened up.
  5. (intransitive) To commence firing weapons.
    • As the convoy entered the pass, we opened up on them with everything we had.
  6. (figuratively, intransitive) To rain.
    • The sky has really opened up. I've never seen this much rain!

See all 10 meanings of open up

Questions about opened up

What is opened up the simple past and past participle of?
Opened up is the simple past and past participle of open up.

Words near opened up in the dictionary

  1. opened the batting
  2. opened the door
  3. opened the floodgates
  4. opened the kimono
  5. opened the range
  6. opened up
  7. opened up a can of whoop ass
  8. opened up a can of whoop-ass
  9. opened up the kimono
  10. opened wide
  11. opened-toe

Source and license

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