star up
star up verb: to transfer (an incarcerated juvenile offender) to an adult prison earlier than the usual age of 18 or 21.
Verb
star up (third-person singular simple present stars up, present participle starring up, simple past and past participle starred up)
- To transfer (an incarcerated juvenile offender) to an adult prison earlier than the usual age of 18 or 21.
- So he lost it all when he got starred up: sent to adult prison.2011, Jonathan Trigell, Boy A, page 189
- Under 18s can occasionally be moved to the adult estate through a process known in the system as 'starring up'. Fewer than ten under 18s were moved each year between 2010 and 2012 and none in 2013.2016, Yvonne Jewkes, Ben Crewe, Jamie Bennett, Handbook on Prisons, page 534
Forms of star up
| third-person singular present | stars up |
|---|---|
| present participle | starring up |
| past participle | starred up |
| past | starred up |
Questions about star up
- What does star up mean?
- Star up means to transfer (an incarcerated juvenile offender) to an adult prison earlier than the usual age of 18 or 21.
- What part of speech is star up?
- Star up is a verb.
- What is the past tense of star up?
- The past tense of star up is starred up.
Words near star up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: star 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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Cite this entry: “star up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/star_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.