Word.ws English Dictionary

rev up

rev up verb: to increase the speed of an engine, especially that of a stationary motor car.

Verb

rev up (third-person singular simple present revs up, present participle revving up, simple past and past participle revved up)

  1. (idiomatic) To increase the speed of an engine, especially that of a stationary motor car.
    • The huge Rolls-Royce engine revved up. Then the back wheels spun furiously, and clouds of smoke filled the air.2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN
  2. (broadly, slang, transitive) To make (someone or something) more active; to energize.
    • Blast out of the gate on Monday by listening to up-tempo music before your workout. Israeli scientists say this can raise your heart rate, rev you up for an intense exercise session, and temporarily boost muscle power by 10 percent.2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 134
  3. (broadly, intransitive, slang) To become more active.
    • I didn't much want to leave again, but, though I'm not sure I exactly understand why, I just knew I had to rev up again to play this thing out.2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 225

Synonyms of rev up

Forms of rev up

third-person singular presentrevs up
present participlerevving up
past participlerevved up
pastrevved up

Words formed from rev up

Questions about rev up

What does rev up mean?
Rev up means to increase the speed of an engine, especially that of a stationary motor car.
What part of speech is rev up?
Rev up is a verb.
What is the past tense of rev up?
The past tense of rev up is revved up.

Words near rev up in the dictionary

  1. rev
  2. Rev Ardashir
  3. rev counter
  4. rev counters
  5. rev st st
  6. rev up
  7. rev'd
  8. rev'g
  9. rev.
  10. revacate
  11. revacated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rev 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rev up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rev up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rev_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.