phrasal verb🧩 phrasal verb

eat up

to consume completely

What it means

To finish all of your food, often used when encouraging children. It can also mean to consume something quickly or to be deeply affected by a feeling.

Examples

  • Eat up, children — your soup will get cold if you keep talking.
  • The car eats up petrol on long motorway journeys, unfortunately.
  • Studying for exams ate up most of my summer holiday this year.
  • He's been eaten up with jealousy ever since she got that promotion.

Where it comes from

Separable phrasal verb. The figurative senses (using up resources, being consumed by emotion) appeared in English by the 1500s, especially in religious writing.

Related phrasal verbs

#drink up#use up#fill up#run out

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