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Glite Dictionary
💡 To make bright 😊 To become happy 🎉 To make lively 🚬 To start smoking
to light up

to light up

55 3.7
Become lively and cheerful because someone is there
  • phrasal verb
  • /laɪt ʌp/
  • Informal
: animar
  • When Coleman is up -- as he usually is -- he lights up a room, filling it with his energy and drive.

The way you light up my life like nobody else.

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Examples

  • So, anyways, your jokes... God, and the sound of her laugh, it would just light up the whole room.

    Late Night (2019)

  • Truly, you light up the room.

    Adam Resurrected (2008)

  • The ideal parents light up when you come in the room.

  • The two of them together, they could light up a room.

    Pete Smalls Is Dead (2010)

  • You light up the room.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Start doing that and notice how people, they just light up, you know, their smiles come out.

  • "Similarly, Eddie's parent described his son's "sweet spirit" and said that "when he smiles it just lights up the room."

    Academic text (2015)

  • I'm biased, but I realized right off the bat, especially when I pitched it, everyone would just light up.

    Blog text (2)

  • The children's laughter lights up the playground, creating a joyful atmosphere.

  • Her arrival at the party made everyone light up with excitement and joy.

Synonyms

to lighten
vsto light up
125 3.4

To make people or a situation feel more cheerful

is about places or situations brightening because someone arrives
to brighten
vsto light up
71 2.7

To make a place or thing look more cheerful by adding color

is about people causing a lively, cheerful atmosphere rather than color changes
to brighten up
vsto light up
  • Informal
22 2.7

Make a room or person more cheerful

is specifically about becoming lively due to someone's presence
to light up a room
vsto light up
  • Informal
5 3.4

Make a room feel happier and more lively

is the change caused specifically by someone's presence or actions
to light up the room
vsto light up
  • Informal
4 3.8

Make a room feel happy and friendly when someone arrives

is the same but emphasizes personal presence rather than general change
to brighten the room
vsto light up
  • Informal
2 3.0

To make a room feel happier and more lively

is focused on becoming lively because someone is there
to brighten up the room
vsto light up
  • Informal
1 2.9

Make a room feel more lively and cheerful

is about becoming cheerful through a person's presence or effect

Antonyms

to depress
28 4.1

To make someone feel sad and lose hope

How Lively

to buzz
43 3.1
to come alive
63 3.7
to light up
  • Informal
55 3.7
to perk up
  • Informal
31 3.1
to brighten
71 2.7

Surface Forms

light up infinitive
lighting up present participle
lights up third person singular
lit up past
lit up past participle

Morphology

light + up

The sense 'to become lively or cheerful' follows directly from combining 'light' (to illuminate or make brighter) with the particle 'up' (intensifying/completing the action) — together they yield 'brighten', which easily extends metaphorically to mood or atmosphere. This verb+particle composition and the brightness→cheer metaphor are common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents is likely to infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Light up comes from the picture of a room filling with light when someone or something brings joy, like turning on a lamp, so it means 'to become lively' or 'to make a place cheerful'.