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Glite Dictionary
to clock up

to clock up

1 6.6
To reach a total for things like miles, hours, or experience by doing something again and again
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : acumular
  • After working at the company for a year, she had clocked up over 1,000 hours of experience.

Examples

  • It has clocked up just 86 miles in its lifetime; and now it's set to go on sale for the first time since the early 1980s.

    Blog text (26)

  • Frank has clocked up a round trip of 150 miles in four days.

    The Elephant in the Room (2025)

  • If a post about biking just gets every reader to clock up an extra 5 miles on their bike that week, then job done.

    Blog text (2)

  • I suspect that many novelists clock up sixty thousand words after a year's work and believe (wearily, perhaps) that they are only halfway there.

    Blog text (4)

  • Worse still, the contraction in manufacturing accelerated, and sharply so, clocking up its fifth consecutive month of contraction according to the flash estimate.

    Blog text (3)

  • Yet despite EVs clocking up significant speed, range, and endurance records this year, one major automaker has announced that it's pulling back on EV production to concentrate on its expanding family of hybrid vehicles.

    Blog text (1)

  • During her morning jog, she managed to clock up five miles before the sun rose.

  • As a taxi driver, he can easily clock up several hundred miles in just one day.

Synonyms

to rack up
vsto clock up
  • Informal
54 3.6

To collect many points or wins

accumulates totals from repeated actions without implying big or competitive wins
to accrue
vsto clock up
27 6.6

To slowly increase over time, for example money or benefits

builds totals by repeated actions rather than slowly over time
to log up
vsto clock up
6.5

To write down and add up time or distance in a record

adds up totals through repeated activity without needing a written record

How Much

to rack up
  • Informal
54 3.6
to amass
66 4.8
to clock up
1 6.6
to accumulate
174 3.4
to collect
499 1.1

Surface Forms

clock up infinitive
clocked up past
clocked up past participle
clocking up present participle
clocks up third person singular

Morphology

clock + up

The sense arises from combining 'clock' (to record/measure) with 'up' (to increase/bring to a total), so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer a meaning related to recording or accumulating a total. However, the specific collocational use 'clock up X' as a conventionalized phrasal verb meaning 'achieve/accumulate' is somewhat lexicalized and metaphorical, so it is not fully predictable without exposure.

Etymology

The phrasal verb clock up comes from the image of a machine, like a clock or meter, that counts and adds numbers as time or miles go up. So, to clock up something means 'to reach or collect a total amount'.