1
as in strengthened
to increase the ability of (as a muscle) to exert physical force
beefed up the walls with iron bars
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in intensified
to make markedly greater in measure or degree
will beef up security for the next few days while the president is in town
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for beefed (up)
Verb
-
The storm has strengthened into the equivalent of a Category 4 Hurricane and is expected to hit central Vietnam Thursday night — an area that hasn’t yet recovered from disastrous flash flooding and landslides caused by weeks of record rainfall and successive storms.—
Helen Regan,
CNN Money,
6 Nov. 2025 -
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch has said several operations already underway in Michoacán, including arresting those involved in organized crime, would be strengthened.—
Ellie Cook,
MSNBC Newsweek,
5 Nov. 2025
Verb
-
The debate in Cincinnati intensified when City Manager Sheryl Long placed Police Chief Teresa Theetge on leave in October and hired a law firm to investigate her job performance.—
Patricia Gallagher Newberry,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
4 Nov. 2025
-
Twenty other areas in Darfur and Kordofan, where fighting has intensified in recent months, are also at risk of famine, according to the IPC.—
NPR,
NPR,
3 Nov. 2025
Verb
-
It had been hardened too much for an emotion so soft.—
Snigdha Poonam,
The Dial,
28 Oct. 2025
-
And his immigration policies seem only to have hardened since then.—
Patricia Lopez,
Mercury News,
23 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
Every element of this show is equally heightened and untethered from anything resembling reality, and the only actor who rises to meet that moment is Paulson.—
Tom Smyth,
Vulture,
4 Nov. 2025
-
Council members call for more transparency Concerns among the community about the bayou deaths heightened when McKissic and others were unexplainably found dead within weeks of each other.—
Dalia Faheid,
CNN Money,
27 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
The new sedan also integrates BYD’s latest Tianshen C driver-assistance suite, which adds adaptive cruise, lane-centering, and enhanced safety automation to support more comfortable long-distance driving.—
Bojan Stojkovski,
Interesting Engineering,
25 Oct. 2025
-
The 8-mm manual focusing lens has a resolution of 256 × 192 pixels, which can be enhanced to simulate 512 × 384 pixels.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
24 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
The tie-up has further deepened its Houlihan relationship.—
Shawn Tully,
Fortune,
1 Nov. 2025
-
Anthropic and Google deepened their cloud partnership last week in a deal worth tens of billions of dollars, while Meta has inked hefty cloud deals with Google and Oracle in recent months.—
Annie Palmer,
CNBC,
30 Oct. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Beefed (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/beefed%20%28up%29. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share