pump iron
pump iron verb: to lift weights; to engage in weight or strength training.
Verb
pump iron (third-person singular simple present pumps iron, present participle pumping iron, simple past and past participle pumped iron)
- To lift weights; to engage in weight or strength training.
- Her upper body strength has been improving since she started pumping iron at the gym.
- For years now, Arnold Schwarzenegger has made the talk-show rounds telling audiences that pumping iron is better than sex. No wonder it took him so long to find a bride.1987 September, Robert McKay, “The National Standard”, in Cincinnati Magazine, page 104
Forms of pump iron
| third-person singular present | pumps iron |
|---|---|
| present participle | pumping iron |
| past participle | pumped iron |
| past | pumped iron |
Questions about pump iron
- What does pump iron mean?
- Pump iron means to lift weights; to engage in weight or strength training.
- What part of speech is pump iron?
- Pump iron is a verb.
- What is the past tense of pump iron?
- The past tense of pump iron is pumped iron.
Words near pump iron in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pump iron (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pump iron.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pump iron.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pump_iron. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.