tear it up

Verb

tear it up (third-person singular simple present tears it up, present participle tearing it up, simple past tore it up, past participle torn it up)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tear, it, up.
   • Now, where's my Labour membership card, so I can consider whether to tear it up? Blast, it's plastic...2025 February 19, Christian Wolmar, “Reeves talks of 'growth' but pays lip service to the railway”, in RAIL, number 1029, page 35
2. To compete extremely well, to trounce the competition.
   • Statistics not only help us keep track of who's tearing it up and who's stinking it up, they shape the way we think about the game.1996, Dan Gutman, Tim McCarver, The Way Baseball Works, →ISBN, page 178
   • You look back at the greatest players and if they were in their prime and in the game now, my goodness gracious. Jerry West would be tearing it up. Elgin would be tearing it up. Oscar Robertson would be tearing it up. Wilt Chamberlain would be tearing it up. You just go down that list. I'm sitting...2013, Bobby "Slick" Leonard, Lew Freedman, Boom, Baby!: My Basketball Life in Indiana, →ISBN, page 118
3. To perform with great energy and flair.
   • Dad would see them watching me polishing the leather and he'd call me out on stage and the crowd went wild. Little twelve-year-old girl tearing it up.2009, J. B. Kohl, Eric Beetner, One Too Many Blows to the Head, →ISBN, page 188
   • His Double Trouble started tearing it up all over the world. Was just three guys—Stevie, Tommy Shannon on bass, and Chris Layton on drums—but man, they had a big sound.2012, Buddy Guy, David Ritz, When I Left Home: My Story, →ISBN, page 242
4. To succeed in a big way.
   • I was in Florida doing my investing thing, absolutely tearing it up with huge returns.2008, Todd Babbitt, Millionaire by 28: Real Estate Investing for the Young & Ambitious, →ISBN
   • Butch Guice and Diego Rodriguez are tearing it up, huh? They put across the notion of constant cold so evocatively that expect to be able to see my breath as I read the book.2014, Chuck Dixon, Winterworld #2
5. To display great energy or force.
   • The wind was tearing it up, the waves at least eight to ten feet high as the surf crashed on shore.2010, Gwenna Sebastian, Lost and Found
   • Here are my eight favorite get-fit foods, based on that research and what's worked best for my clients over the years, along with what makes me feel like tearing it up on my morning run.2012, Keri Glassman, The New You and Improved Diet, →ISBN
6. To display sexual prowess.
   • Girl, I'll give yo lil ass a nice lil workout. I can carry yo ass all over my spot and tear it up at the same time.2010, Lea Mishell, Teresa Seals, Mary L. Wilson, Tales from the Lou, →ISBN, page 125
   • My face might have been jacked up from Jaylin, but it surely didn't affect me in any way down below. After I told Stephon about what had happened in court, we got a good laugh and wound up in my bedroom, tearing it up.2011, Brenda Hampton, Naughty 5: Too Naughty, →ISBN
7. To behave with wild abandon; to indulge in sex, drugs, and/or alcohol.
   • Carrie told Janie that Melinda saw him in Lansing at a club, and he was tearing it up. Funny, that. Because he seems very, very shy.2009, Lisa McMann, Fade, →ISBN, page 64
   • I knew I wasn't living right, but I'd grown up so sheltered and such a "good girl" that I kind of lost it when I experienced the independence of college life. I'd been tearing it up for a couple of years pretty consistently, but it was getting harder to maintain.2013, Amy Sanders, The Death Shroud: A Novel of Suspense, →ISBN, page 55