Word.ws English Dictionary

step up

step up verb: to increase, augment, or advance, especially by one or more steps.

Verb (1)

step up (third-person singular simple present steps up, present participle stepping up, simple past and past participle stepped up)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To increase, augment, or advance, especially by one or more steps.
    • Near-synonym: level up
    • They will need to step up production if they are going to compete.
    Synonyms:
    level up

Verb (2)

step up (third-person singular simple present steps up, present participle stepping up, simple past and past participle stepped up)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To assume or take responsibility.
    • Won't anyone step up to the challenge?
    • The Gunners continued to press after the break but it was Leeds who broke the deadlock in the 54th minute. There was no doubt about the penalty either, with Denilson clumsily fouling Gradel and Snodgrass stepping up to find the bottom corner of the net.2011 January 8, Chris Bevan, “Arsenal 1 - 1 Leeds”, in BBC
    Synonyms:
    volunteer, offer

step up meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Kannada

step up in Tamil

உயர்த்து, விரைவுபடுத்து

step up in Urdu

بڑھانا, تیز کرنا

step up in Kannada

ವೃದ್ಧಿಪಡಿಸು, ಮುಂದುವರಿ, ಕ್ಷಿಪ್ರಗೊಳಿಸು

Synonyms of step up

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of step up

Forms of step up

third-person singular presentsteps up
present participlestepping up
past participlestepped up
paststepped up

Origin of step up

Ellipsis of step up to the plate (“take one's turn at bat, take responsibility”).

Questions about step up

What does step up mean?
Step up means to increase, augment, or advance, especially by one or more steps.
What is step up in Tamil?
Step up in Tamil is உயர்த்து, விரைவுபடுத்து. See Step up meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is step up?
Step up is a verb.
What is the past tense of step up?
The past tense of step up is stepped up.

Words near step up in the dictionary

  1. step street
  2. step therapy
  3. step time
  4. step times
  5. step to
  6. step up
  7. step up on
  8. step up one's game
  9. step up to the plate
  10. step-
  11. step-aunt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: step up (page history and authors); step up (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); step up (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); step up (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

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

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