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• beef-up
  beef-up

  noun

  an act or instance of strengthening or reinforcing.
• beef up
  beef up

  Strengthen, reinforce, as in Mary wants us to beef up her part in the play. This phrase relies on an older slang sense of beef as “muscles” or “power.” [Colloquial; late 1800s]

beef-up

American  

[beef-uhp] / ˈbifˌʌp /

noun

1. an act or instance of strengthening or reinforcing.

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beef up Idioms  

1. Strengthen, reinforce, as in Mary wants us to beef up her part in the play. This phrase relies on an older slang sense of beef as “muscles” or “power.” [Colloquial; late 1800s]

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Etymology

Origin of beef-up

Noun use of verb phrase beef up

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

beef-up beef up

RBS may offload an additional 25% stake in Citizens by March 2015 in order to beef-up its balance sheet.

From Forbes ● Sep. 25, 2014

Last week Menzies carried the beef-up further, announced the reinstatement of the draft, which had been dropped in 1959.

From Time Magazine Archive

At London's Heathrow Airport, travelers report that the beef-up can add 20 minutes to the already lengthy process of clearing security, while at New York City's Kennedy International Airport, extra police are on duty.

From Time Magazine Archive

Syntagma Square, in the heart of the Greek capital, was closed to traffic, with a heavy police presence to beef up security, AFP photographers saw.

From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026

“They’re going to need to beef up how they talk about safety and preventing some of the issues that are described in some of these tweets,” Martin told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026

Earlier this month, a group of 100 firms, including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI, urged countries and groups to beef up their cyber defences before AI grows powerful enough to override them.

From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026

Both bills were sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California, a powerful trial lawyer trade group that says it wants to beef up punishment for misconduct.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

Athletes trying to beef up their college resumes.

From "Dumplin'" by Julie Murphy

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