Word.ws English Dictionary

soup up

soup up verb: to modify the engine of (a motor vehicle) to give a higher performance than the specifications.

Verb

soup up (third-person singular simple present soups up, present participle souping up, simple past and past participle souped up)

  1. (informal, transitive) To modify the engine of (a motor vehicle) to give a higher performance than the specifications.
    • Imagine souping up a Mini with a Cosworth engine: the car would fly.2009 October 19, Paul Rees, “Flying backs become walking wounded as blitz defence has its impact”, in The Guardian
  2. (broadly, figuratively, transitive) To embellish with many additions.
    • They are dickering over a tax cut small enough, in a bill "souped" up with gadgets, to escape or override a veto.1948, Harley L. Lutz, "Taxes and Jobs," Institute of Business and Economic Problems: A Series of Lectures, page 25

Synonyms of soup up

Forms of soup up

third-person singular presentsoups up
present participlesouping up
past participlesouped up
pastsouped up
alternative formsoup-up
alternative formsupe up

Words formed from soup up

Questions about soup up

What does soup up mean?
Soup up means to modify the engine of (a motor vehicle) to give a higher performance than the specifications.
What part of speech is soup up?
Soup up is a verb.
What is the past tense of soup up?
The past tense of soup up is souped up.

Words near soup up in the dictionary

  1. soup spoon
  2. soup spoons
  3. soup strainer
  4. soup strainers
  5. soup to nuts
  6. soup up
  7. soup's on
  8. soup-and-fish
  9. soup-and-fish suit
  10. soup-and-fish suits
  11. soup-and-fishes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soup 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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