skyrocket
Americannoun
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skyrockets
plural
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a rocket firework that ascends into the air and explodes at a height, usually in a brilliant array of sparks of one or more colors.
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Also called scarlet gilia. a plant, Ipomopsis aggregata, of the phlox family, native to western North America, having finely divided leaves and clusters of red, trumpet-shaped flowers.
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an organized group cheer, usually led by a cheerleader, as at a football or basketball game, which begins with a hissing or whistling and ends with a shout.
verb (used without object)
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skyrockets,
present (3rd person singular)
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skyrocketed,
past participle, past
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skyrocketing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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skyrockets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
skyrocketed,
past participle, past
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skyrocketing
present participle
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to cause to rise or increase rapidly and usually suddenly.
Economic changes have skyrocketed prices.
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to thrust with sudden dramatic advancement; catapult.
Talent has skyrocketed him to fame.
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
skyrocketsimple
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skyrocketssimple
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have skyrocketedperfect
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has skyrocketedperfect
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am skyrocketingprogressive
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are skyrocketingprogressive
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is skyrocketingprogressive
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have been skyrocketingperfect progressive
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has been skyrocketingperfect progressive
Past
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skyrocketedsimple
-
had skyrocketedperfect
-
was skyrocketingprogressive
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were skyrocketingprogressive
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had been skyrocketingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of skyrocket
Explanation
When something skyrockets, it shoots up. Immediately after the Winter Olympics, interest in ice skating, bobsledding, and curling tends to skyrocket, or increase suddenly and dramatically. The verb skyrocket is good to use when something grows or shoots up as abruptly as a firework. Gas prices, food prices, debt, and winter cases of the flu are all said, from time to time, to skyrocket. A more literal meaning of skyrocket is the actual rocket that's designed to send a flare or firework high into the sky. A bottle rocket — a firework that is placed in an empty bottle before being lit and shooting into the air — is one example of a small skyrocket.
Vocabulary lists containing skyrocket
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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.
See Examples For:
Wall Street expectations for an interest-rate hike at the Fed’s next big meeting in mid-September would skyrocket.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
"We probably need a lot more data on the reliability, we need a lot more research… otherwise what happens is your levels of anxiety will just skyrocket," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Brown’s move to Meta underscores the increasing demand for top executives with experience developing computing infrastructure as AI use continues to skyrocket.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
The company, a supplier of advanced memory chips to industry behemoth Nvidia, has seen profits skyrocket thanks to the global race to build artificial intelligence data centres.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
“I didn’t expect fundamental deterioration in the underlying mortgage pools to hit critical levels for a couple years,” he said—when the teaser rates would vanish and monthly payments would skyrocket.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Singapore's economy grew six percent year-on-year in the first quarter as demand skyrockets for artificial intelligence chips, balancing the fallout from the Middle East war, the government said Monday.
From Barron's ● May 25, 2026
As demand for artificial intelligence skyrockets, AI companies have been grasping for solutions to flatten the steep cost curve of compute.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 18, 2026
Swinney accused UK ministers of "twiddling their thumbs" while the cost of living for rural households skyrockets.
From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2026
As the price of rights to coveted sporting events skyrockets, the broadcasters have America’s most-loved tournament locked up for seven more years in exchange for relatively fixed annual payments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2025
The same is true of Fourth of July equipment, flags and bunting and skyrockets.
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
While no agency tracks these cases nationwide, three firms that help secure these kinds of residences said interest in so-called golden visas has skyrocketed in the past five years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
SpaceX has delivered its first-ever quarterly business report, which showed revenue nearly doubled but its spending skyrocketed.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
Microsoft and its rivals have been scrambling to buy up artificial-intelligence hardware at a time when prices for key memory components have skyrocketed, raising questions about profits.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
AI-related shares have skyrocketed recently, with SK hynix gaining more than 500 percent over the past 12 months, for example.
From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026
When he said no, my morale skyrocketed, for I suspected that we now had the answer to the riddle of why the number of purine residues exactly equaled the number of pyrimidine residues.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
The odds of this forecast coming true are close to nil; employment almost never collapses by that much, and never when output is skyrocketing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Now, millions of Californians are losing their health coverage, and millions more are being forced to pay skyrocketing costs,” SEIU-UHW Press Secretary Renee Saldana wrote in a statement to The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Consumer activity is anemic while debt defaults are skyrocketing.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
However, skyrocketing demand for Kimi K3 suggests that Chinese AI models may be just as compute-hungry as their Western counterparts.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
My stomach a hard ball, my pulse skyrocketing again, I left his office without shaking his outstretched hand.
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
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.
