heat up

phrasal verb

heated up; heating up; heats up

1

: to become warm or hot

The morning started out cold but it heated up quickly.

2

: to become more active, intense, or angry

Their conversation started to heat up.

Competition between the two companies is heating up.

3

heat (something) up or heat up (something) : to cause (something) to become warm or hot

Could you heat up the vegetables, please?

Examples of heat up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

As the winds whipped across the seaside links-style layout, the competition heated up. —Tim Corlett, Forbes.com, 11 Sep. 2025

The brief switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle powered by multibillion dollar orders from customers as the artificial-intelligence race heats up. —Preston Fore, Fortune, 11 Sep. 2025

The battle to represent France in the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards just heated up as the country’s Oscar selection committee unveiled its shortlist of five candidates on Wednesday. —Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 10 Sep. 2025

Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon will need to keep investing as the cloud computing race heats up. —Jeff Marks, CNBC, 10 Sep. 2025

Rhymes for heat up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup