to eat up
16
1.0
- phrasal verb
- /iːt ʌp/
:
comerse
- Boys, eat up, then we'll teach Oliver our game.
- eat up your food
- Eat up, kid
- Eat up now
And the larvae eat up the cheese and make this kind of soft gooey stuff.
- And the larvae eat up the cheese and make this kind of soft gooey stuff.
- But hey, eat up, you know, fill those stomachs so you can get back to the slots.
- Then I've got these like snack platters and there's this one that has all the different witches feet and it says eat up witches.
- So a little bit more chill today. I'm going to get some work done and eat up.
Examples
-
Come on, eat up, I love this stuff.
-
Harold, please eat up everything on your plate.
-
Go on, Max, eat up, buddy.
-
You guys better eat up.
-
Eat up before this gets cold.
-
"You'd better eat up, young man," Mom said.
Fiction book (1996) -
Let's eat up some of those peas.
-
Kids, eat up!
-
Please eat up.
-
Eat up, everyone.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Put food or drink into your mouth, chew it and swallow it
53
3.9
To destroy or use up things quickly, for example when fire burns a building
19
3.0
To eat something quickly and eagerly
4
3.8
To finish something quickly and easily, for example a meal or a task
2
4.0
To eat a lot of food eagerly
1
5.7
To eat a lot of food quickly while enjoying it
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
eat + up
The meaning is directly built from 'eat' (to consume) plus the particle 'up', which commonly marks completeness in English phrasal verbs; therefore a learner who knows both words can infer 'eat up' as consuming or using something entirely. This compositional completive pattern is productive and cross-linguistically recognizable, so the phrase is immediately understandable rather than idiomatic.
Etymology
Eat up comes from the simple picture of finishing every last bite on your plate: eat is to chew and up shows it is finished. So, it means 'to finish eating everything'.