buff up

present singular third person buffs up · participle present buffing up · participle past buffed up · past buffed up

1. idiomatictransitiveTo improve.

   […] Mr. Kurz was quickly seen in Europe as the poster boy of an ascendant right for a new generation, a political Wunderkind who had salvaged conservatism by borrowing the far right’s agenda, buffing it up and bringing it into the mainstream.

   2021 October 17, Katrin Bennhold, “Fake Polls and Tabloid Coverage on Demand: The Dark Side of Sebastian Kurz”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. transitiveTo shine; to make shiny.
3. idiomaticintransitiveTo become more muscular.
4. idiomaticintransitiveTo study hard to learn a particular subject.

   I'll need to buff up on my Italian before my trip to Genoa.

   Synonyms: cram