Up

How to spell up

2 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce up

What does up mean?

1. adverbTowards or in a higher position, or to an increased degree.
2. adjectiveAwake, active, or functioning, as opposed to down or off.
3. verbTo increase or raise something, such as a price, bid, or amount.

Up in a sentence

• adverb

  She carried the boxes up to the attic.

• adjective

  The server is back up after the outage.

• verb

  The supplier decided to up the cost without warning.

• adverb

  Prices have gone up again this month.

• adjective

  He was up before dawn to catch the train.

Where does up come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This little word descends from Old English 'up' or 'uppe', meaning 'upward' or 'on high', and it has close cousins right across the Germanic family, including Old Norse 'upp', Dutch 'op', and German 'auf'. All of these trace back to a shared Proto-Germanic root that carried the basic idea of motion away from the ground. Over the centuries 'up' broadened far beyond simple direction, picking up dozens of figurative and grammatical jobs: it intensifies verbs (eat up, fill up), marks completion, and even works as a verb in its own right (to up the price). Despite all that flexibility the spelling has stayed remarkably stable, just two letters, which is why almost nobody ever gets it wrong.

How the word is built

• up (single Old English root; no affixes)