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Synonyms

heat up

Idioms  

  1. Become acute or intense, as in If inflation heats up, the interest rate will surely rise, or The debate over the budget was heating up. [Early 1200s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The light this interaction creates is what we can see as the grains heat up and ionise.

From BBC • Apr. 15, 2026

But investors should prepare for the market to quickly heat up in the next few months.

From Barron's • Apr. 3, 2026

When talks around this topic began to heat up last year, experts told MarketWatch that shifting responsibility for the program to another agency wouldn’t do much to solve its fundamental challenges.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 19, 2026

Pricing competition is set to heat up between Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the analysts say.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 18, 2026

My mother always wakes up early to heat up soup and eat with me while the rest of the family sleeps.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.