heat up

phrasal verb

heated up; heating up; heats up

1

: to become warm or hot

The morning started out cold but it heated up quickly.

2

: to become more active, intense, or angry

Their conversation started to heat up.

Competition between the two companies is heating up.

3

heat (something) up or heat up (something) : to cause (something) to become warm or hot

Could you heat up the vegetables, please?

Examples of heat up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

While the temperature cools as the calendar flips to the best time of year, Aaron Fearne and the Charlotte 49ers’ men’s basketball team are looking to heat up. —Hunter Bailey, Charlotte Observer, 25 Sep. 2025

The tropics are heating up, with Hurricane Gabrielle and Tropical Storm Humberto both churning in the Atlantic as well as a new system that could strengthen and possibly impact the Southeast next week. —Kenton Gewecke, ABC News, 25 Sep. 2025

Nvidia is poised to be a big winner in the AI arms race as dealmaking in the space heats up, which could catapult its stock price to new highs, according to Barclays. —Liz Napolitano, CNBC, 25 Sep. 2025

Competition is also heating up. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune, 24 Sep. 2025

Rhymes for heat up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup