beef-up

[ beef-uhp ]

noun

1. an act or instance of strengthening or reinforcing.

Word History and Origins

Origin of beef-up¹

Noun use of verb phrase beef up

Idioms and Phrases

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]

Example Sentences

Among the ultra-conservative group’s demands are reversing President Biden’s embattled $400 billion student loan write-off, clawing back unspent COVID-19 funds, rescinding the $80 billion IRS beef-up approved last December and capping discretionary spending at 2022 levels for the next decade.

From Washington Times

And although their success has come from the draft, that also means spending some money in free agency, as they did last year to beef-up their defence with Trey Hendrickson, Mike Hilton and Chidobe Awuzie among others.

From BBC

Ark Invest meanwhile shuffled its portfolio on Tuesday by cutting its already-tiny holdings in Apple, Amazon, Taiwan Semiconductor and Google-owner Alphabet to beef-up its Tesla stake on Wednesday.

From Reuters

We don’t need to beef-up our military because the U.S. is coming to our aid,’” said Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert and political scientist at Davidson College in North Carolina.

From Los Angeles Times

We’ve got an extremely low unemployment rate, so there aren’t as many folks needing to beef-up their educational credentials to find better work.

From Washington Times