shoot up

verb

"shoot-up" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“shoot 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
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To grow taller or larger rapidly.

Corpus desk

Index EN-shoot-up · shoot up · English

shoot up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" 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.

Key facts for shoot up
PropertyValue
Headwordshoot up
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “shoot up” in English

shoot upsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

shoot up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for shoot up, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is shoot up, spelled S-H-O-O-T- -U-P.

Definition

  1. 1
    To grow taller or larger rapidly.
  2. 2
    To fire many bullets or shells at.
  3. 3
    To use up (ammunition) by shooting.
  4. 4
    To inject (a drug) intravenously.
  5. 5
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shoot, up.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how shoot up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Our operating costs have shot up due to the fuel shortage.
  2. He was a small child, but shot up when he reached his teenage years.

This word in other languages

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "shoot up"?
"shoot up" is spelled S-H-O-O-T- -U-P.
What does "shoot up" mean?
As a verb, "shoot up" means: To grow taller or larger rapidly.
What language does "shoot up" come from?
"shoot up" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list