smash up

verb

To destroy, or be destroyed by smashing.

Meanings

verbsmash up (third-person singular simple present smashes up, present participle smashing up, simple past and past participle smashed up)

present singular third person smashes up · participle present smashing up · participle past smashed up · past smashed up

  1. ambitransitiveidiomaticTo destroy, or be destroyed by smashing.

    The complete 1892 rebuilding, indeed, followed an accident in 1890, when No. 6 ran away down the Buckley branch, and got badly smashed up in a collision at Connah's Quay.

    1944 May and June, “Notes and News: A Much Transformed Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 186
    1 more example

    You remember, Harry, when the working men in America revolted against the Robots and smashed them up, and when the people gave the Robots firearms against the rebels. And then when the governments turned the Robots into soldiers, and there were so many wars.

    c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2
  2. idiomatictransitiveTo injure or maim.

Synonyms & antonyms

verbdamage or destroy as if by violence

Broader
Also see

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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