to kick up
17
3.8
- phrasal verb
- /kɪk ʌp/
:
levantar polvo
- The wind, it's kicking up mud.
- kicked up dust
You couldn't see the, the dust was just kicking up in your eyes and ears and nose and mouth.
- You couldn't see the, the dust was just kicking up in your eyes and ears and nose and mouth.
- Turns out several hours earlier, while going through another evolution, one of the guys in front of him kicked up a piece of rock.
- I think maybe why it's getting such low ratings is because of how messy and powdery it is 'cause you get like a ton of powder kick up here.
Examples
-
Oh, that rainstorm really kicked up some mud last night.
-
Look at those dust clouds kicked up by a plow in West Texas!
Academic text (2004) -
Out there you can kick up the dust.
-
- We're gonna kick up some dust.
-
Those horses, they kick up a lot of dust all day.
-
Well, I'm going to kick up a little more dust before the night's over.
-
I saw her running through the front yard, kicking up leaves, wearing a red sweater.
Fiction book (1998) -
The truck barely misses him, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake.
Fiction book (1991) -
The hart darted frantically through the forest, kicking up clods of moist earth.
Fiction book (1992) -
The children love to kick up dust as they run around the playground.
Synonyms
5
4.8
To hit or throw something high into the air
3
4.5
To lift something heavy with a lot of effort
Antonyms
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to cause something to appear or occur suddenly' is partly derivable from combining 'kick' (to strike/make) with 'up' (upwards/into being): literal uses like 'kick up dust' transparently map to this sense and the figurative 'kick up a fuss' is a straightforward metaphorical extension. However, because the particle-verb extension is somewhat figurative and learners must generalize the causative 'raise/stir up' meaning across contexts, a B1 learner may not fully predict all uses without prior exposure.
Etymology
Kick up as a verb comes from literally kicking the ground so dust or dirt rises into the air, like children running and making small clouds of dust. So it means 'to cause dust or dirt to rise'.