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Showing results for lighten up. Search instead for tighten+up.
Synonyms

lighten up

Idioms  

  1. Become or cause to become less serious or gloomy, and more cheerful. For example, Lighten up, Sam—it'll turn out all right. This slangy expression transfers reducing a physical weight to a change of mood or attitude.

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.

If individual investors and large institutions collectively decide to lighten up on their dollars, it will leave a mark.

From Barron's • Feb. 19, 2026

Or did the embrace of “Rocky” and “Jaws” mean that audiences wanted their movies to lighten up?

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025

No, this is more the fatigue of frustration — I want to like this show so much but it refuses to lighten up enough to let me in.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 5, 2024

“If companies lighten up on things that are ineffective, that could be a good outcome,” Dr. Dobbin said, noting that mandatory anti-bias trainings have been shown to sometimes even worsen bias.

From New York Times • Jan. 22, 2024

“You sure make it sound easy,” he finally said, trying his best to lighten up the situation.

From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner

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.