to fill up
46
1.1
- phrasal verb
- /fɪl ʌp/
:
llenarse
- Then the sun is uncovered again; the little room fills up with light.
- fill up quickly
And so now we're having this giant backlog and this thing fills up fast.
- And so now we're having this giant backlog and this thing fills up fast.
- I kid you not, the SD card in this camera filled up when I was one minute away.
- And I can just feel my mouth filling up with blood.
Examples
-
It's filling up with water.
-
Feel your lungs fill up with air.
-
All the platforms are filling up.
-
Their tears are filling up their glasses.
-
The place is filling up quickly, and a few couples venture onto the dance floor.
Academic text (2006) -
Everyone's families are coming out, so it's filling up fast.
-
Cold polar water is filling up the deep ocean basins all around the world.
-
Well, when it fills up, don't be afraid to call me.
-
Hush and fix that screen door before the house fills up with flies.
Fiction book (1990) -
The balloon began to fill up with air as she blew into it.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To make a place full by putting people or things into it
23
3.7
To be full to the top, often with a strong feeling
5
2.7
To make something so full that nothing else can fit
Antonyms
How Full
Surface Forms
Morphology
fill + up
The meaning 'to eat until one is completely full' is directly derived from 'fill' (to make full) combined with the particle 'up', which signals completion or fullness. This compositional completion pattern is common in English and other languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrasal verb fill up shows the picture of a container or place slowly getting things inside until it reaches the top. With fill meaning 'put in' and up meaning 'to the top', it came to mean 'become full'.