big up
"big-up" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“big up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To increase one's muscle mass.
Corpus desk
Index EN-big-up · big up · English
big up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | big up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “big up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
big up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for big up, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is big up, spelled B-I-G- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To increase one's muscle mass.
- 2To become big.
- 3To behave confidently and proudly.
- 4To proclaim or exaggerate the importance of; to promote.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how big up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She was bigged up—had a weight-lifter's rippling arms.
Relatively simple multicellular forms had already existed for a hundred million years when the Cambrian began: the explosion had a long fuse, and during this earlier fizzling life experimented with various ways to big up.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.