Meaning & use
fill up
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Meanings
verbphrasal verb
To put something into a container or space until it is full.
Grammar: Takes an object, which may come before or after up, but a pronoun comes in the middle: fill it up.
Patterns
- fill something up
- fill something up with something
Can you fill up the water jug before dinner?
He filled the car up with gas on the way out of town.
Please fill it up to the line.
verbphrasal verb
To become full, as a space or container does.
Grammar: No object here: the thing that becomes full is the subject.
Patterns
- something fills up
- something fills up with something
The stadium filled up an hour before the match.
The bathtub is filling up quickly.
My inbox fills up every weekend.
verbphrasal verbinformal
To satisfy someone's hunger with a lot of food.
Grammar: Can take a person as object or use a reflexive: fill yourself up.
Patterns
- fill someone up
- fill up on something
The soup will fill you up.
I filled up on bread before the main course arrived.
Don't fill up on snacks if we're going out to eat.
Word forms
| third person singular | fills up |
|---|---|
| past tense | filled up |
| past participle | filled up |
| -ing form | filling up |
Common combinations
- fill up the tank
- We stopped to fill up the tank before the long drive.
- fill up with gas
- She filled up with gas near the highway exit.
- fill up quickly
- The seats filled up quickly after the doors opened.
- fill up on
- They filled up on pasta before the hike.
- fill someone up
- A bowl of oatmeal fills me up until lunch.
Synonyms and how they differ
- top off
- Top off means adding a little to something that is nearly full, whereas fill up means filling it all the way.
- refuel
- Refuel applies only to vehicles and engines, while fill up is used for any container or space.
- load
- Load suggests placing items into something, but fill up emphasizes reaching the point of fullness.
- stuff
- Stuff means packing something tightly, often too tightly, which fill up does not imply.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: fill up or fill in?
fill up vs fill in
Fill in means to complete a form or take someone's place, whereas fill up means to make something full.
Practice
We need to ___ the tank before we cross the desert.
Choose one answer.
Fill up means to make a container full. Fill in and fill out relate to forms, and fill off is not an English phrasal verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fill up”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.