Word.ws English Dictionary

up to something

Syllables: up to some·thingUK/ˈʌp tuː ˈsʌmθɪŋ/US/ˈʌp tə ˈsʌmθɪŋ/

up to something adjective: doing something mischievous or scheming.

Adjective

up to something (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Doing something mischievous or scheming.
    • He looks like an angel, but I can tell he's up to something.
    • I took my mare and went down to the swamp, for I knew they had been up to something there from the signs I saw.1871 October 27, Prince McElhannon (witness), “The Ku-Klux Conspiracy”, in Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States....

Examples of up to something in a sentence

  • One or another of them will be poking their heads in and see we have been up to something [...]1922 February, L. B. Thoburn-Clarke, “Amid the Swamps. A True Story of New Zealand Life in the Early Days.”, in The Boy's Own Paper, volume...
  • One day Chander, who was always up to something, took it into his head to ring up one or two customers in regard to bills long outstanding on them.1955 January 22, S. Roberts, “The Man who Made the Grade: A Short Story”, in Ram Singh, A. K. Mukerji, editors, Thought, air edition...
  • If they are doing nothing they are going to be up to something – just send them to prison.2005 August 25, Simon Cox, “A 'Neet' Solution”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 08 Jul 2018:

Questions about up to something

What does up to something mean?
Up to something means doing something mischievous or scheming.
How do you use up to something in a sentence?
One or another of them will be poking their heads in and see we have been up to something [...]
What part of speech is up to something?
Up to something is an adjective.
How do you pronounce up to something?
Up to something is pronounced /ˈʌp tuː ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near up to something in the dictionary

  1. up to one's neck in alligators
  2. up to one's old tricks
  3. up to par
  4. up to scratch
  5. up to snuff
  6. up to something
  7. up to speed
  8. up to standard
  9. up to the chin
  10. up to the elbows
  11. up to the hammer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up to something (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-up to something.ogg.

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