up to
527
2.8
- idiom
- Informal
- What have you been up to lately? I hope you're not getting into trouble.
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Watch on YouTubeThis is why because all of the stuff that they're up to is massive.
- This is why because all of the stuff that they're up to is massive.
- He was, you know, invested, you know, up to his eyeballs in vaccines.
- We're gonna be talking about what I've been up to since the last podcast.
Examples
-
It's up to you whether you take it or not.
-
Look, it's up to us, okay?
-
It's like, hey guys, what are you guys up to kind of a thing?
-
What else have you been up to, dude, besides training?
-
What else have you been up to dude, besides training?
-
It's up to you, it's up to your practice.
-
- What are you two up to?
-
What is that farmer up to?
-
I knew he was up to some mischief.
-
She must be up to something.
Synonyms
126
3.4
Giving full attention to an activity or idea
75
1.8
Busy doing something and not free to do other things
62
7.0
Doing something secret that may be wrong or harmful
5
7.7
Very busy with more work than you can handle
5
1.0
To keep yourself active by doing something
Very busy with work or tasks and feeling overwhelmed
Doing small naughty things for fun
Antonyms
How Busy
Surface Forms
Morphology
up + to
The meaning 'having the necessary qualities or ability' is not a direct compositional result of combining the literal senses of 'up' (movement/position) and the preposition 'to'; the phrase functions as a fixed predicative construction whose sense is partly metaphorical. There is a loose connection to 'up' implying readiness or adequacy (cf. 'up for'), but a B1 learner who only knows the individual words would likely need exposure to this idiomatic use, so it is intermediate in transparency.
Etymology
Up to (when we say someone is up to something) one popular story says it comes from the image of a person going up to a hidden place to work on a secret plan. So if someone is 'up to' something, they are busy with it, often in a way that seems suspicious.