rack up
rack up verb: to arrange in a rack.
Verb
rack up (third-person singular simple present racks up, present participle racking up, simple past and past participle racked up)
- To arrange in a rack.
- At the start of the game, the referee racks up the red balls.
- If you rack up, I'll break.
- To gain (points etc.; in a game or sport), to accumulate.
- Chelsea racked up another 3 points at home to Bolton.
- In between, Mesut Özil's penalty was saved and Arsenal racked up more chances than they would probably want to remember.2013 November 26, Daniel Taylor, “Jack Wilshere scores twice to ease Arsenal to victory over Marseille”, in The Guardian
- To acquire, to gather together.
- By the age of 18, he had already racked up thousands of dollars in debt.
- Rack up your arm candy with this schmancy bangle, watch, and bracelet set from Anne Klein.2024 October 8, Megan Uy, Tarah-Lynn Saint-Elien, “65+ Fall Prime Day Fashion Deals Your Closet Is Begging You to Shop”, in Cosmopolitan
- To defeat severely, to thrash.
- To collect one's chips and cash out.
- To attribute, chalk up.
- A number of times I heard Bruce say, in passing, "I just don't see why everyone has to be labeled. I just don't think words like homosexual — or gay — do anything for anybody." And I would hold my counsel and rack it up to age.1986, Samuel R. Delany, Joseph Beam, “The Possibility of Possibilities”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 204
Forms of rack up
| third-person singular present | racks up |
|---|---|
| present participle | racking up |
| past participle | racked up |
| past | racked up |
Questions about rack up
- What does rack up mean?
- Rack up means to arrange in a rack.
- What part of speech is rack up?
- Rack up is a verb.
- What is the past tense of rack up?
- The past tense of rack up is racked up.
Words near rack up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rack 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rack up.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rack up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rack_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
