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pump up
Inflate with gas or air, as in This tire needs pumping up . [Late 1800s]
Fill with enthusiasm, strength, and energy, as in The lively debate pumped us all up . Mary Wollstonecraft used this idiom in slightly different form in The Rights of Women (1792): “Lover-like phrases of pumped-up passion.”
Example Sentences
“Because if I had to deal with someone who I had to pump up, or I had to make him believe that he can do it, it would be a whole different process.”
The company can then sell new merchandise from the live-action films and pump up interest and familiarity with the characters.
On Sunday, Chelsea supporters again booed players who passed the ball backwards and, after Cucurella's goal, Maresca turned to supporters and told them to pump up the volume.
When a president places a pregame call to pump up the players, a prime minister offers postgame commentary, and monuments such as the Empire State Building and Toronto’s CN Tower are lit up in national colors for the contest.
He wanted to emphasize he was spending lavishly to build a foundation to challenge the Dodgers year in and year out, not to pump up the payroll and attendance and then sell the team.
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