bear up

verb

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bore up; borne up also born up; bearing up; bears up

Definition of bear up

transitive verb

: support, encourage

intransitive verb

1 : to summon up courage, resolution, or strength bearing up under the strain

2a : to prove to be true, accurate, or valid : hold up The deal was scrapped when it became apparent that it would not bear up to scrutiny from the European Commission.— Lars Brandle

b : to prove to be effective or able to withstand something : hold up The brand … first became popular after the duo succeeded in building cars that could bear up to Sweden's rough roads and freezing temperatures.— Hannah M. Muralla

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Examples of bear up in a Sentence

repeatedly borne up in times of adversity by his faith

Recent Examples on the Web To bear up against nature’s indifference can be invigorating and also corrective. — New York Times, "What It Means to Look at Paintings of Snow," 19 Jan. 2021 But the generalization doesn’t bear up to broader scrutiny. — Francis Fukuyama, WSJ, "Francis Fukuyama on the State of Democracy in 2020 and Beyond," 15 Dec. 2020 Don’t participate in any activities that will not bear up under close examination. — Tribune Content Agency, oregonlive, "Horoscope for Oct. 31, 2020: Happy birthday Rob Schneider; Gemini, relax, enjoy spooky fun," 31 Oct. 2020 The University of California, San Francisco, has a top-tier, high-resource hospital that is transparent about its policy of offering only comfort care for babies who are born up to the first day of the 23rd week, down to the hour. — Sarah Digregorio, New York Times, "Parents of Extremely Premature Babies Face an Impossible Choice," 16 Apr. 2020 Mexicans have to hope that a young population bears up better than aging Italy. — Mary Anastasia O’grady, WSJ, "AMLO Defies Medicine and Economics," 29 Mar. 2020 Big banks have done nicely nevertheless, borne up by America’s long economic expansion and by Mr Trump’s broad corporate-tax cut at the end of 2017. — The Economist, "Light relief The Fed has lightened the load on America’s banks," 15 Oct. 2019 As the first anniversary of the Oct. 27 attack nears, bearing up has become especially difficult. — Ben Sales, sun-sentinel.com, "How Pittsburgh survivors are struggling nearly a year later," 2 Oct. 2019 In other words, the Central-ist who bears up best to the grind of going 87-75 just might emerge victorious. — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, "Paul Daugherty: The Cincinnati Reds certainly have a shot in the underwhelming NL Central," 30 June 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bear up.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.