Word.ws English Dictionary

pumps up

pumps up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pump up.

Meaning of pump up

Verb

pump up (third-person singular simple present pumps up, present participle pumping up, simple past and past participle pumped up)

  1. (transitive) To inflate by means of a pump.
    Synonyms:
    air up
    1. (transitive) To do so with a pumping action.
      • For someone who is in shape, it is not difficult to pump up a car tire with a bicycle pump; it is merely tedious. But you can get the job done if you need it bad enough.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To excite a person or group to a frenzy.
    • The singer has been pumping up the audience.
  3. (intransitive, transitive) To cause one's muscles to swell by means of focused weightlifting.
    • I want to pump you up.
  4. (transitive) To cause (something) to increase in intensity, salience or other traits beyond what is reasonable.
    • You have to pump up the relatability of the characters in your screenplay.
  5. (transitive) To increase the volume of (something).
    • pump up the jam

Questions about pumps up

What is pumps up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pumps up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pump up.

Words near pumps up in the dictionary

  1. pumps iron
  2. pumps one's fist
  3. pumps out
  4. pumps someone's fist
  5. pumps someone's tires
  6. pumps up
  7. pumps up someone's tires
  8. pumpsman
  9. pumpsmen
  10. pumpwood
  11. pumpwoods

Source and license

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