open up

To open up means to start talking honestly about your feelings, thoughts, or personal experiences, especially when this is difficult or you have been keeping them private. It often happens when someone feels safe, trusted, or ready to be vulnerable.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'open up' is used in the emotional sense, it is inseparable — no object is placed between 'open' and 'up'. You say 'She opened up to her sister,' not 'She opened her sister up.' The phrase can be followed by the preposition 'to' plus a person, or used alone without any object at all.

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had worked alongside Marcus for two years without knowing much about him beyond his coffee order. One afternoon, a di team meeting left them both quiet in the break room. She mentioned that she'd been struggling too, and something sh . Marcus set down his cup and, for the first time, began to open up — about the pressure he felt being the only person of color on their floor, about the ex of always seeming fine. Priya listened without interrupting. B the time they returned to their desks, something between them had changed permanently. S , without meaning to, Marcus had begun to op , a it changed how they worked together.

Register

Neutral

In the spring of 1941, the British author C.S. Lewis began exchanging letters with a woman named Joy Davidman, who had written to him from New York about his work on faith and grief. Lewis, known for his s intellect and careful emotional reserve, had spent years constructing arguments rather than sharing personal vulnerability. Y as the correspondence deepened over the following decade, and after Joy moved to England and they eventually married in 1956, something remarkable happened: Lewis, the great rationalist, began genuinely opening up. When Joy died of bone cancer in 1960, he re his raw, unfiltered grief in a private journal later published as 'A Grief Observed' — a book unlike anything he had written before, full of doubt, anger, and deing honesty. He de the silence of God, the feeling of a door slammed shut, the way grief felt physical. It was not a theological argument. In , it was a man opening up. Ev , the episode reminds us that the moded people sometimes find one relationship, one moment of loss, that finally unlocks what they had been carrying alone. It was, in every sense, a decision to op .

To stop yourself from showing or expressing a feeling, or to prevent yourself from doing or saying something. When you hold back, you keep something under control rather than letting it out freely.

Type

Separable phrasal verb.

Notes

As a separable phrasal verb, 'hold back' can be split by placing a noun object between 'hold' and 'back' — for example, 'She held back her tears' or 'She held her tears back.' When the object is a pronoun, separation is required: you must say 'She held them back,' never 'She held back them.'

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had rehearsed the conversation a hundred times. She needed to tell her older brother that his di comments had been hurting her for years. When she finally sat across from him at their mother's kitchen table, she felt the familiar tightness in her throat. For a moment she almost held back — smiled, changed the subject, let it go again. B this time she let herself speak. Her voice cr once, then st . Her brother went quiet. Ne of them had expected honesty to feel so much like relief. She had chosen, finally, not to ho the si truth.

Register

Neutral

On the night of April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what would become his final public speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He was exhausted, ill, and had nearly skipped the event altogether. Standing before st sanitation workers — men who had endured violent intimidation for weeks — King spoke about threats on his life and said, with st calm, that he had 'been to the mountaintop' and was no longer afraid to die. Aides present that night later recalled that King w backstage after the speech, overcome by the weight of what he sensed was coming. He did not hold back those pr tears, th for months he had held back his deeper fears from the public platform, pr strength so that others would not lose courage. He was asted the following evening. Y , the episode reveals something true about ho : sometimes what we suppress in front of others costs us greatly in private.

To continue doing something without stopping, even when it is difficult or you feel like giving up. It often describes persisting through challenges in order to finish or succeed.

Type

Inseparable phrasal verb.

Notes

"Keep going" is an inseparable phrasal verb, meaning no object or other word can be placed between "keep" and "going." For example, you can say "She kept going despite the pain," but you cannot say "She kept it going" to express this same meaning of continued effort — inserting an object changes or loses the intended sense entirely.

Conjugation

Narrative

Priya had been studying for her nursing entrance exam for six months. In the f week, she failed two practice tests back to back and nearly cancelled her registration. Her older sister sat with her at the kitchen table on a Tuesday night, g over drug-calculation problems one more time. "You know more than you think," her sister said quietly. Priya wasn't sure she believed that, b she ke anyway — flashcards at breakfast, practice questions on the bus. S , on exam day, she pa with two points to spare. Ev , she cried in the parking lot afterward, from relief rather than a q fear.

Register

Neutral

In January 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. By November the ice had crushed and sunk her, leaving Shackleton and his twenty-seven men stranded on the frozen surface with three small lifeboats. Over the following months, the crew drifted on ice floes, eventually launching the boats into vi Antarctic waters. Shackleton then led an 800-mile open-boat journey to South Georgia Island — widely considered one of the most da sea voyages in history — arriving in May 1916 with five ex men. He then crossed the island's unmapped mountain range on foot to reach a whaling station and organize a rescue. Every single member of the expedition survived. Shackleton made no dramatic speeches about resilience; he simply as each new obstacle and f the next possible action. S , the expedition is remembered not because the mission succeeded — it failed entirely — buuse when every reason to stop acted , Shackleton and his crew found a way to ke .

To increase gradually or develop something stronger over a period of time. It can refer to physical things, skills, confidence, pressure, or relationships that grow little by little.

Type

Separable phrasal verb.

Notes

When 'build up' is used with a noun object, the noun can appear either between the two parts or after 'up': 'She built up her confidence' and 'She built her confidence up' are both correct. However, when the object is a pronoun, it must go between the verb and the particle: say 'She built it up,' never 'She built up it.'

Conjugation

Narrative

Marco had always been te of public speaking. In January, he signed up for a local toastmasters club, not to give speeches, but just to watch. By February, he was introducing himself. By April, he was delivering two-minute talks. His mentor, Dana, re him every week that there were no shortcuts — each s session was building up a layer of confidence he hadn't had before. By June, Marco stood in front of forty strangers and s for eight minutes without notes. S , he wasn't cured of fear, b he had bu enough courage to face it. Ev , his hands still shook a little.

Register

Informal

In 1934, a twenty-five-year-old Soichiro Honda was working as a mechanic in Hamamatsu, Japan, repairing cars and racing them on weekends. He had no university degree and almost no capital. Rahan launch a company immediately, he spent years studying engineering part-time at Hamamatsu Technical High School while running his repair shop. He exted with piston ring manufacturing in his own backyard, failing repeatedly — Toyota rejected his first prototypes as un . In quitting, Honda re his process, invested back into the workshop, and gradually won a supply contract with Toyota in 1941. After the war, in 1948, he founded Honda Motor Co. with that ha technical knowledge and a reputation earned one small improvement at a time. His story is a pr illustration of what bu means in practice: not a single breakthrough, b a deliberate, patient accumulation of skill, credibility, and resources over more than a decade before the world took notice.