Word.ws English Dictionary

set upon

set upon verb: to attack someone.

Verb

set upon (third-person singular simple present sets upon, present participle setting upon, simple past and past participle set upon)

  1. To attack someone.
    • I was set upon by a couple of young thugs.
    • O'Connell was walking with a friend when the pair was set upon by the teenagers. They beat O'Connell and knocked him to the ground.1984 August 18, Sue Hyde, “Gay Man Dies Following Queerbash Attack”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 2
  2. To begin an activity; to embark upon a course of action.
    • On receiving the letter, I immediately set upon writing a reply.
    Synonyms:
    set on

Synonyms of set upon

Forms of set upon

third-person singular presentsets upon
present participlesetting upon
past participleset upon
pastset upon

Questions about set upon

What does set upon mean?
Set upon means to attack someone.
What part of speech is set upon?
Set upon is a verb.
What is the past tense of set upon?
The past tense of set upon is set upon.

Words near set upon in the dictionary

  1. set up one's rest
  2. set up one's staff
  3. set up shop
  4. set up someone's birse
  5. set up to oneself
  6. set upon
  7. set with
  8. set-and-forget
  9. set-aside
  10. set-builder notation
  11. set-down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: set upon (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: “set upon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/set_upon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.