Word.ws English Dictionary

size up

size up verb: to evaluate; to estimate or anticipate the magnitude, difficulty, or strength of something.

Verb

size up (third-person singular simple present sizes up, present participle sizing up, simple past and past participle sized up)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To evaluate; to estimate or anticipate the magnitude, difficulty, or strength of something.
    • It's a good idea for boxers to size up their opponents before their matches.
    • Before we can begin to size up the problem, we'll need more information.
  2. (intransitive) To wear a larger size of clothing.
    • This shirt runs tight, so you should size up.

Forms of size up

third-person singular presentsizes up
present participlesizing up
past participlesized up
pastsized up

Questions about size up

What does size up mean?
Size up means to evaluate; to estimate or anticipate the magnitude, difficulty, or strength of something.
What part of speech is size up?
Size up is a verb.
What is the past tense of size up?
The past tense of size up is sized up.

Words near size up in the dictionary

  1. size roll
  2. size rolls
  3. size stick
  4. size sticks
  5. size theory
  6. size up
  7. size zero
  8. size zeros
  9. size-exclusion chromatography
  10. size-up
  11. size-ups

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: size 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-size up.ogg.

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