Beat-up

adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An artificially or disingenuously manufactured outcry, usually in the media. Australia, New-Zealand

    "2009, Natasha Robinson, 'James Packer book outrage a beat-up, says Paul Barry', The Australian, Business section “It has been suggested that this is a vicious book, a poisonous book, that it's a disgrace to have written it,” Mr Barry said at today's book launch. “That's a total beat-up.""

Adjective
  1. 1
    Worn out by overuse; in a state of disrepair informal
Adjective
  1. 1
    damaged by blows or hard usage wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
batteredbeat upbeaten-upbedraggledblowzybroken down

Example

More examples

"Yanni drives a silver beat-up truck."

Etymology

Deverbal from beat up.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.