beat up
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: beats up
form: beating up
form: beat up
form: beaten up
form: beat up
form: beat-up
Senses: examples: text: I got beaten up by thugs on my way home.
text: You don't beat people up, so that you can live in a society where nobody would beat you up.
text: If anyone wondered why the liner went straight at the panzerschiff, Fegen's reasoning was clear. The 11-inch guns could hit him at long range, but the short-barrelled 6-inch on his own ship couldn't range out quite as far. So, to start beating up Admiral Scheer, he had to get closer.
ref: 2022 December 3, Drachinifel, 5:25 from the start, in HMS Jervis Bay - Guide 312, archived from the original on 16 May 2023:
glosses: To give a severe beating to; to assault violently with repeated blows.
examples: text: I wanted to beat you up this morning and make breakfast for you for once.
glosses: To wake up earlier than.
examples: text: At breach of wall, or hedge surprise, / She shared i' th' hazard, and the prize: / At beating quarters up, or forage, / Behaved herself with matchless courage
ref: 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 2:
text: On this occasion, the diligent prior o St. Andrews assembled 600 horse, with which he assailed the French, beat up their quarters, intercepted their provisions, and cut off their straggling parties.
ref: 1770, John Belfour, A New History of Scotland, pages 137–138:
text: Our people are daily gaining Health Spirits and Discipline — the spade & pick axe throw'd aside — for the British Rebels to take up — they notwithstanding affect to hold us cheap and threaten to beat up our Quarters — if we don’t beat up theirs first which is in Contemplation, this in time.
ref: 1777 June 7, Anthony Wayne, letter to Sharp Delany from the Camp at Mount Prospect 7th June 1777, in 1893, Charles Stillé, Major-General Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line in the Continental Army, page 6
text: "We know for certain that their army does not consist of more than three thousand men, including all sorts." Sir Henry Percy, on hearing this, was greatly rejoiced, and cried out, "To horse! to horse! for by the faith I owe my God, and to my lord and father, I will seek to recover my pennon, and to beat up their quarters this night."
ref: 1839, Jean Froissart, chapter CXXVI, in Thomas Johnes, transl., Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and The adjoining Countries, page 367:
text: Pa Blanken tells me that the Japs beat up our camp a month ago and we have lost all our heavy gear and moved up into the hills - he does not know where. Hell! No casualties, however. [...] Our material losses were very serious. The Japs had found a rucksack containing all our money, our medicines, including all our vital quinine, a copy of our signals plan, and a number of maps. […] It seems probable that the Japs spotted our camp from the air. They certainly knew its exact position and came straight to it.
ref: 1948, F. Spencer Chapman, The Jungle Is Neutral, published 2003, pages 272–275:
glosses: To attack suddenly; to alarm.
examples: text: He [= a paraglider pilot] flew into a hill and beat himself up pretty badly.
ref: 2008 October 29, on Real Rescues (a British TV program)
glosses: To cause, by some other means, injuries comparable to the result of being beaten up.
examples: text: Don’t beat yourself up over such a minor mistake.
glosses: To feel badly guilty and accuse (oneself) over something. (Usually followed by over or about.)
examples: text: It's getting louder and louder
Every time I think about you, about you
I'll be better off without you, without you
I wish my heart would stop, wish my heart would stop
Beating me up (whoa, oh, whoa)
Beating me up (whoa, oh, whoa)
Beating me up
ref: 2015 May 12, Rachel Platten, Dave Bassett, Brian West, “Beating Me Up”, in Fight Song, performed by Rachel Platten:
glosses: To make (someone) feel badly guilty and accuse (them) over something.
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To repeatedly bomb a military target or targets.
glosses: To get something done (derived from the idea of beating for game).
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
glosses: To disturb; to pay an untimely visit to.
examples: text: to beat up for recruits, or for volunteers
glosses: To go diligently about in order to get helpers or participants in an enterprise.
Synonyms: sense: give a severe beating to
word: do over
sense: give a severe beating to
word: rough up
sense: give a severe beating to
word: work over
word: process
Derived terms: beat 'em up
beat-up
Related terms: beat to a pulp