Meaning & use
spice up
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Meanings
verbtransitive
to make something more interesting, exciting, or lively.
Grammar: Takes an object: spice up the party. With a pronoun, put it between the verb and up: spice it up.
Patterns
- spice up something
- spice something up
- spice up something with something
The teacher spiced up the lesson with a short video.
We need to spice up our presentation; it's too boring.
He spiced up his speech with a few jokes.
verbtransitive
to add flavor to food by using spices or other strong ingredients.
Grammar: Takes an object: spice up the soup. Often used with 'with' to name the spice.
Patterns
- spice up something with something
She spiced up the rice with cumin and chili.
You can spice up the sauce with a little garlic.
They spiced up the plain chicken with herbs and lemon.
verbtransitiveinformal
to make a romantic relationship more exciting, often by adding new activities or variety.
Grammar: Takes an object: spice up their marriage. Often used with 'relationship' or 'love life'.
Patterns
- spice up a relationship
- spice up your love life
They went on a surprise trip to spice up their relationship.
The couple tried new hobbies to spice up their marriage.
She wanted to spice up their love life with a weekend away.
Word forms
| third person singular | spices up |
|---|---|
| past tense | spiced up |
| past participle | spiced up |
| -ing form | spicing up |
Common combinations
- spice up a party
- The DJ really spiced up the party with great music.
- spice up your life
- She decided to travel more to spice up her life.
- spice up a relationship
- They took dance classes to spice up their relationship.
- spice up a dish
- You can spice up this dish with fresh chili.
- spice things up
- We need to spice things up around here; it's too quiet.
Synonyms and how they differ
- liven up
- Similar meaning, but often used for people or events becoming more energetic, not for adding flavor to food.
- enhance
- More formal and neutral; it means to improve quality, not necessarily to make something more exciting.
- flavor
- Used for adding taste to food, but it does not carry the idea of making something more interesting.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: spice up or spice?
spice up vs spice
As a verb, 'spice' usually means to add spice to food, while 'spice up' means to make something more exciting or interesting.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
When the object is a pronoun like 'it', it must go between 'spiced' and 'up': 'spiced it up'. The other options are either ungrammatical or less natural because the pronoun is in the wrong position.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “spice up”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.