Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
⛽ To refuel 👏 To praise
to gas up

to gas up

1 9.2
Give someone praise to make them feel more confident
  • phrasal verb
  • Slang
translation icon : animar
  • They just called and said, "Gas up a stretch, run it down... -

And I was like, oh, I can't have this because one, it's like, I don't want my comments to kind of be gassing me up because it's going to feed the wrong voices.

Examples

  • With the folks paying $2 per gallon more to gas up.

    Blog text (19)

  • A year ago, when gas prices were going up, this was the headline at Fox Nation:

    Blog text (25)

  • You mess me up some, you fool around some, you come in here gassed up and charging, expect me to drop my stuff and go away with you.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Since I was with her a good part of the day, I couldn't help but notice that she was acting weird, like she was all gassed up about something.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • And I was like, oh, I can't have this because one, it's like, I don't want my comments to kind of be gassing me up because it's going to feed the wrong voices.

    Alannized

  • Before the big game, she made sure to gas up the team with some encouraging words.

  • To boost his confidence, I decided to gas up by highlighting his recent achievements.

  • Her friends gathered around to gas up her, sharing compliments and support before her presentation.

Synonyms

to fire up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
70 4.1

Make people feel excited and ready to act

is milder using praise to gently raise confidence rather than intense arousal
to pump up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
28 4.1

Make someone feel excited and full of energy

focuses on flattering praise to boost confidence rather than general energy
to perk up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
16 3.1

Become more lively and cheerful after feeling tired or sad

applies to deliberate flattering praise rather than recovery from tiredness
to spirit up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
3 7.0

Make someone feel happier and full of energy

is personal flattering speech used informally to raise an individual's confidence
to pep up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
3 4.1

Make someone or something more lively and interesting

involves saying flattering things specifically to raise confidence and mood
to hype up
vsto gas up
  • Informal
3 5.6

To make someone feel very excited about something

is informal praise aimed at raising confidence and mood
to puff up
vsto gas up
1 6.4

To praise someone too much to make them seem better

is praise too but aims more to lift confidence than to exaggerate
to buoy up
vsto gas up
5.3

To make someone feel more cheerful and confident

does the same but by using informal flattering words to boost mood

Antonyms

to criticize
701 3.3

To say what is wrong with someone or something

to discourage
257 3.5

To try to stop something by making people less willing to do it

How Complimentary

to adulate
  • Formal
1 8.5
to gas up
  • Slang
1 9.2
to flatter
100 3.6
to praise
331 1.0
to compliment
95 1.6

Surface Forms

gas up infinitive
gassed up past
gassed up past participle
gassing up present participle
gas ups third person singular

Morphology

gas + up

The slang sense 'to praise or hype' is not directly derivable from the literal sense of 'gas' (to add petrol) and a missing dictionary entry for 'up', but it can be seen as a metaphorical extension where 'gas' = energize and 'up' intensifies (similar to 'pump up'). Because this requires a figurative mapping and informal register knowledge, a B1 learner who only knows the literal constituents would only sometimes infer the meaning without prior exposure.

Etymology

One popular story says the slang gas up uses the same filling image: to gas someone is to give them energy or praise and up shows making them full. So it means 'to praise or hype someone'.