perking up

Verb

perk up (third-person singular simple present perks up, present participle perking up, simple past and past participle perked up)

1. (intransitive) To become more upright
   • His ears perked up when he heard there would be ice cream.

   Synonyms:

   rise, stick up

2. (intransitive) To become more lively or enthusiastic.
   • In hopes the coming Scenes your Mirth will raise
     To you, the Iust pretenders to the Bays;
     The Poet humbly thus a Reverence pays
     And you, the Contraries, that hate the Pains
     Of Labour’d Sense, or of Improving Brains:
     That feel the Lashes in a well-writ Play,
     He bids perk up and smile, the Satyr...1694, Thomas D’Urfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote, London: Samuel Briscoe, Prologue

   Synonyms:

   cheer up, get it up

3. (transitive) To cause to be more upright, straighten up.
   • For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole...1913, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 8, in Pollyanna, L.C. Page, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   right, straighten

4. (transitive) to cause to be more lively or enthusiastic.
   • […] ’tis better to be lowly born,
     And range with humble livers in content,
     Than to be perk’d up in a glistering grief,
     And wear a golden sorrow.c. 1612, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Henry VIII, Act II, Scene 3

   Synonyms:

   elate, hearten, beatify, enrapture, begladden, blissen, bright, cheer, fetch, cheer up

5. (intransitive, obsolete) To exalt oneself, take on a higher status or position.
   • […] they should not give heed to Women, that would be perking up in matters of Worshiping God.1683, John Bunyan, A Case of Conscience Resolved, London: Benjamin Alsop, page 36

   Synonyms:

   aggrandize, rise