man up
/mæn ˈʌp/
"man-up" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“man 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 be brave or tough enough to deal with something in a manner that is considered strong or manly. (Compare man (“brace oneself, steel oneself”))
Corpus desk
Index EN-man-up · man up · English
man 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 "M" 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 | man up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /mæn ˈʌp/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “man up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
man up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /mæn ˈʌp/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for man up, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From man + up, with influence from own up, buck up. The correct English form is man up, spelled M-A-N- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To be brave or tough enough to deal with something in a manner that is considered strong or manly. (Compare man (“brace oneself, steel oneself”))
- 2(Of personnel) to assemble, each person manning (attending to) his station, prepared for the departure of an aircraft, ship, etc. (Compare man (“supply with staff; take up position to operate”).)
- 3To staff adequately; to staff up; to successfully fill all needed labor positions. (Compare man (“supply with staff”).)
- 4To vigorously guard the opponent to whom one is assigned.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how man up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I was wondering when he would man up and marry that girl he knocked up.
You need to man up and confront your boss about her behavior.
Etymology
From man + up, with influence from own up, buck 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.