to gang up
27
4.3
- phrasal verb
- /ɡæŋ ʌp/
- Informal
:
unirse contra
- Are you two ganging up on me?
But this is the establishment ganging up on the Leave programme.
- But this is the establishment ganging up on the Leave programme.
- OK, well, your daughters ganged up on her, bullied her, told her to sleep on the floor.
- But he's been ganged up on, he's been plotted against, and we should not accept that.
Examples
-
My three brothers used to gang up on me.
-
Many prisons become tribal, and inmates find they must gang up if they are to survive.
Blog text (21) -
To be fair, the guys did try to gang up on him in the bar.
-
Everybody gang up on Mom, who works all day and has friends like Tucker.
-
We're going to gang up and shove you into the deep end of the pool.
Fiction book (2001) -
Why are you two ganging up on me?
-
America has been number one for too long, and now all the little countries are ganging up on us.
Fiction book (1998) -
I turn my back for a second and everyone is ganging up on me!
Blog text (24) -
In some birds, for instance, siblings gang up on an unwanted brother or sister.
Academic text (2005) -
The children always seem to gang up on the new kid at school.
Synonyms
95
2.5
Join with other people or groups to work together on a goal
70
1.9
Come together in a group near someone or something
34
3.1
Join with other people to work together for a common purpose
26
4.9
To join together to pick on someone
2
3.0
People and animals come together in a group for safety or shared interest
Antonyms
How United
- Informal
27
4.3
34
3.1
∞
1.0
- Informal
118
2.8
38
1.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
gang + up
The verb 'gang' already means 'to unite or act together', and combining it with the common particle 'up' yields the straightforward compositional sense 'join together' or form a group; a B1 learner who knows both constituents can derive this meaning. This follows regular English phrasal-verb patterns (where 'up' often signals grouping or intensification), so the adversarial nuance ('on someone') is contextual but the core meaning is transparent.
Etymology
Gang up comes from the picture of several people, a gang, moving up toward someone to surround or push them. So it now means 'to join together', often to criticize or oppose someone.