to beat up
271
4.1
- phrasal verb
- /biːt ʌp/
- Offensive
:
dar una paliza a
- After school, a group of students beat up the bully who had been tormenting them for weeks.
- get beat up
- beat up his brother
How was it seeing your sister's getting beaten up hard?
- How was it seeing your sister's getting beaten up hard?
- Fine, let's go beat up the quad ball players then.
- And I got in and I was getting beat up, but I just kept fighting.
- They you know, they can be beaten up by giants.
- And they were forcing the kid to beat up this, this other small kid.
- So they got beat up, tortured for nothing.
- Some of these guys like to beat up these little boys or little girls.
- Like I've I've been beaten up by black guys and white guys.
- There's no gun, just a guy with a sign getting beaten up by your crowd.
- He's just hey, I can beat up someone, but we'll take it.
- Getting even with your dad for beating up your mom for your mom upon your dad.
Examples
-
Seventeen years old, I beat up a guy.
-
Then, in 1972, he beat up a woman he had picked up after playing at a club.
Fiction book (1994) -
I got beat up a lot.
-
- We get beat up all the time at home.
-
A lot of the white kids got beat up, but not me.
Fiction book (1992) -
And they were forcing the kid to beat up this, this other small kid.
-
He beat up Brian and tossed him out the door.
-
"I'm telling you, you're gonna get beat up," she says, warning her sister of the one obvious threat.
Fiction book (1993) -
Bullied and harassed, beat up in school.
-
He beat up his opponent during the fight, leaving him injured and unable to continue.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To strike someone or something with force
∞
1.2
To hit something or someone again and again, making a rhythm
164
3.5
To hit someone or something with an open hand
126
4.7
To attack someone physically or try to hurt them
53
9.9
To hurt or defeat someone very badly, often by hitting them
46
6.7
Hit something many times, usually with your fists
35
7.3
To attack and hurt someone slightly to scare them
23
8.8
To hit someone repeatedly with a heavy stick or club
15
7.6
Hit someone many times until they are badly hurt or win against them very clearly
13
7.5
Hit something hard so it breaks or opens
8
8.4
To physically attack and beat someone to punish or threaten them
7
6.5
Hit someone hard, often as punishment or in a fight
1
9.0
Hit someone many times until they are badly hurt
1
8.6
To hit someone or something very hard and damage it
1
9.8
Hit someone in the face very hard to hurt them
Hit someone many times so they become badly hurt
To hit someone as a punishment, for example by spanking
How Violent
- Offensive
15
7.6
- Offensive
271
4.1
46
6.7
455
1.4
∞
1.0
110
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
beat + up
The verb 'beat' means to hit repeatedly and the particle 'up' adds a sense of intensity or completion, so the combined meaning 'to attack and injure someone by hitting them repeatedly' is directly derivable from the parts. This is a common verb+particle construction in English, so a B1 learner who knows 'beat' and 'up' would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Beat up comes from a strong, literal image: beat means to hit and up makes the action stronger, like hitting someone again and again until they fall or are hurt. That's why beat up means 'to attack and injure someone by hitting them repeatedly'.