bruise up

verb

To cause bruises to appear, usually by beating or battering.

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Meanings

verbbruise up (third-person singular simple present bruises up, present participle bruising up, simple past and past participle bruised up)

present singular third person bruises up · participle present bruising up · participle past bruised up · past bruised up

  1. transitiveTo cause bruises to appear, usually by beating or battering.
  2. intransitiveTo show or get bruises.

    Instead, we must find an unworthy substitute for the defeat of a foe in that small grin we quickly suppress when we learn that a beheadphoned texter got hit by a car—no, not seriously injured, just bruised up enough to give him a wake-up call.

    2021, William Ian Miller, “The Law of Conservation of Good Things”, in Outrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 34
Cite this entry
APA

bruise up. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bruise%20up

MLA

“bruise up.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bruise%20up. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bruise up,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bruise%20up.

Source: bruise up on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.