Meaning & use
cheer them up
Last updated
Meaning
phrasephrasal verb
To make someone feel happier when they are sad or disappointed.
Grammar: Separable phrasal verb: cheer someone up or cheer up someone, but with pronouns always cheer them up.
Patterns
- cheer someone up
- cheer up someone
I bought my sister some flowers to cheer her up.
The funny movie really cheered them up after a bad day.
He tried to cheer them up with a joke, but they were still upset.
Common combinations
- cheer someone up with something
- She cheered him up with a surprise visit.
- try to cheer someone up
- We tried to cheer her up, but she wanted to be alone.
- cheer up a bit
- After the good news, he cheered up a bit.
Synonyms and how they differ
- comfort
- Comfort means to make someone feel less sad, but it focuses on soothing, not necessarily making them happy.
- console
- Console is more formal and often used when someone has suffered a loss.
- lift someone's spirits
- This phrase is similar but a bit more formal and idiomatic.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: cheer them up or cheer on?
cheer them up vs cheer on
Cheer on means to encourage someone by shouting, especially at a sports event. Cheer up means to make someone feel happier.
Practice
Complete the sentence: 'She was feeling down, so I bought her some chocolates to ____.'
Choose one answer.
The correct order with a pronoun object is 'cheer her up'. Options 0 and 3 use wrong pronoun forms or order. Option 2 uses 'she' instead of 'her'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cheer them up”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.