souped-up
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: government
hobbies
horse-racing
horseracing
horses
lifestyle
military
naval
navy
pets
politics
racing
road
sports
transport
war
Etymology: Uncertain; the fact that the earlier senses seem to be the horse racing cant and United States Navy slang ones suggests a derivation from soup (“liquid food item”), connoting a horse or a person being filled with a liquid.
Alternatively, it has been suggested that the term is a modified clipping of supe(r), with reference to an airplane or automobile engine being supercharged: see, for example, the quotation from 1925. This sense appears to post-date the horse-racing and navy slang senses.
Inflected forms:
form: more souped-up
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most souped-up
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: souped
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: souped up
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: suped-up
pos: adj
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Of a racehorse: injected with a substance to make it run faster or to change its temperament.
pos: adj
gloss: Of an engine, a motor vehicle, etc.: modified for higher performance.
pos: adj
tags: slang
examples: $600.00 BUYS T. M. Scout with "Souped up" OX5 motor. Snappiest commercial single seater built. H. W. Mackie, Air Service, Houston, Texas.
[W]ill it be possible to mount a larger engine for use in La Paz? I doubt very much if the standard 165 would get off the ground up here with a student. I wish you would take that up with the factory and see if they can put out a job with a suped-up seven-cylinder job. The R-540 I think it is.
AUTOMOBILES: SAFETY; Teen-Agers With ‘Souped Up’ Vehicles Urged to Be Careful on Labor Day
TALKING SHOP with young hot-rodder friends, Mrs. Bush keeps grandson waiting in his souped-up car […] at Eddie's Market, social center of South Brooksville, Maine (pop. 150), where she is vacationing with daughter.
The suspicion grows that this souped-up erudition disguises a paucity of thought, which of all things seems to be based on a lack of historical good sense, or, if you will, of good historical sense.
In the drinking that follows that afternoon it is a wonder that no one dies of alcohol poisoning. The final kegs die at around 1800 hours or so, and that is when Coolidge's wife Melanie starts making her souped-up Atomic Kamikazes.
The vehicles, guided by sophisticated software, gave scientists hope that robots may one day take part in battles without endangering soldiers. The driverless vehicles ranged from souped-up SUVs (sports utility vehicles) to hi-tech dune buggies.
He [George Miller] spent nearly 20 years developing the movie, keeping at it through false starts and heartbreaking dead ends. And when he got the chance to make it, he went all in, devising entire societies full of baroquely souped-up death machines and screaming war-cults.
The Netherlands, once famed for being cycle-friendly, is facing a surprising threat: souped-up electric bikes speeding at up to 42kph (26mph).
gloss: Improved.
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: As with the previous Omicron subvariants, it seems likely that the US will follow those regions once again, with or without the new souped-up vaccines.
Since its launch in November last year, ChatGPT has become an extraordinary hit. Essentially a souped-up chatbot, the AI program can churn out answers to the biggest and smallest questions in life, and draw up college essays, fictional stories, haikus, and even job application letters.
gloss: Intoxicated by alcohol or drugs.
pos: adj
tags: US
slang
examples: If you have had any experience at all with the effect that it has upon these people when they are in situations of violence, you can understand that you cannot send these persons who are souped up on drugs to perform a delicate mission […]
gloss: Excited.
pos: adj
tags: New-England
US
slang
Synonyms: pumped
Related words: soup up
Translations: