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Glite Dictionary
🎉 To make lively 💉 To give drugs
to juice up

to juice up

9.3
Give an athlete illegal drugs to make them perform better
  • phrasal verb
  • /dʒuːs ʌp/
  • NSFW
translation icon : dopar
  • Investigators found evidence that the team doctor had been juicing up competitors for years.

Examples

  • The coach was accused of trying to juice up several players before the championship.

  • Several reporters claimed those athletes had been juiced up by an unlicensed trainer.

  • Don't juice up before the competition!

  • He juiced up before the championship.

  • The scandal revealed that several athletes had been juicing up to gain an unfair advantage in the tournament.

  • After the investigation, the team was banned for juicing up players without their consent.

  • The athlete was disqualified for juicing up just weeks before the Olympic Games.

Synonyms

to dope up
vsto juice up
  • NSFW
7 9.4

Give someone drugs to change how they think or act

focuses on improving performance using stimulants typically for athletes

Antonyms

clean
∞ 1.0

Free from dirt or harmful things

to detox
  • Specialized
11 5.5

To stop using drugs or alcohol while receiving medical help

How Enhanced

to juice up
  • NSFW
9.3
to dope
  • NSFW
33 8.4

Surface Forms

juice up infinitive
juiced up past
juiced up past participle
juicing up present participle
juices up third person singular

Morphology

juice + up

Combining 'juice' (energy/vitality) with 'up' (to increase) yields a general sense of boosting or increasing power, so learners who know the parts can infer a basic idea of 'making something more powerful' or 'energizing' it. However, the specific slang sense 'to give someone performance‑enhancing drugs/stimulants' is a metaphorical, culture-specific extension (administration of drugs rather than a literal increase) that is not directly predictable for an average B1 learner, so it is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Juice up (when used about people) may come from sports slang where juice meant a liquid or drug that gave extra power. People pictured giving an athlete 'juice' as a quick boost, so to juice up someone came to mean giving them performance-enhancing drugs, which is why it means 'to give someone drugs to improve performance'.