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

to light up

6 3.7
Become lively and cheerful because someone is there
  • phrasal verb
  • /laɪt ʌp/
  • Informal
translation icon : 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
104 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
27 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
17 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
3 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
3 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 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
to brighten the room
vsto light up
  • Informal
3.0

To make a room feel happier and more lively

is focused on becoming lively because someone is there

Antonyms

to depress
32 4.1

To make someone feel sad and lose hope

How Lively

to buzz
68 3.1
to come alive
56 3.7
to light up
  • Informal
6 3.7
to perk up
  • Informal
16 3.1
to brighten
27 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'.