shoot-up

[ shoot-uhp ]

nounSlang.

an act or instance of injecting an addictive drug intravenously.
shootout (def. 1).

Origin of shoot-up

First recorded in 1965–70; noun use of verb phrase shoot up

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use shoot-up in a sentence

The prevailing wisdom has it that narcos don't shoot up the places where they invest their money.
Trading Dime Bags for Salvador Dali | Jason McGahan | October 19, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
Dickinson declined to say the name of his strip club, for fear that someone may “go there and try to shoot up the place.”
He Humiliates Women Online and In His Strip Club, Like a Good Liberal | Olivia Nuzzi | July 13, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
A Minnesota politician claimed most NBA teams could be shutdown and we would only notice because crime would shoot up.
State Rep Pat Garofalo Says NBA Players Are Criminals | Robert Silverman | March 10, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
I had watched her shoot up into a slender but exquisitely formed woman from a frail, awkward child.
Read ‘The King in Yellow,’ the ‘True Detective’ Reference That’s the Key to the Show | Robert W. Chambers | February 20, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
Unfortunately, when Oceana residents discovered how to shoot up Suboxone, a black market developed for the drug.
‘Oxyana’ Documentary at Tribeca Exposes the OxyContin Epidemic | Marlow Stern | April 23, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST

Other children would shoot up like corn stalks, but I stayed right where I had been in the months and years past.
David Lannarck, Midget | George S. Harney
You see, we had no town to shoot up, so we just punctured the scenery.
The Highgrader | William MacLeod Raine
An honorable member who had been expelled for the use of too strong language, returned to "shoot up" the House.
Humanly Speaking | Samuel McChord Crothers
The posts are poles cut from the trees' branches and when stuck in the ground they shoot up so rapidly that they soon are trees.
Guatemala, the country of the future | Charles M. Pepper
Such beginnings made people think that he should soon shoot up into a giant.
The Book of Curiosities | I. Platts

British Dictionary definitions for shoot up

shoot up

verb(adverb)

(intr) to grow or become taller very fast
(tr) to hit with a number of shots

(tr) to spread terror throughout (a place) by lawless and wanton shooting
(tr) slang to inject (someone, esp oneself) with (a drug, esp heroin)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with shoot-up

shoot-up

Grow or get taller very rapidly, as in She's really shot up in the last year, and now she's taller than her mother. [First half of 1500s]

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