tune-up
an adjustment, as of a motor, to improve working order or condition: The car needs a tune-up badly.
Informal. a preparatory activity or warm-up, as before a contest or game: The track meet served as a tune-up for the Olympics.
Origin of tune-up
1Words Nearby tune-up
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use tune-up in a sentence
The health-care system is broken and in need of an overhaul, not a tune-up.
The pale dawn was beginning to peer into the windows, and the birds to tune up in broken chirrupings for the songs of the day.
The Angel of Pain | E. F. BensonI thought it might be a good way to tune up for the afternoon whirl, without breaking my word to mother.
Fred Fenton on the Track | Allen ChapmanThen comes a strikingly realistic passage where Death attempts to tune up his fiddle, as he is to furnish the music for the dance.
Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works | Edward Baxter PerryThe repetition of this passage at intervals throughout the composition suggests occasional hasty and ill-timed efforts to tune up.
Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works | Edward Baxter Perry
Death again attempts to tune up his fiddle, with frenzied haste, and the dance grows in speed and impetuous power.
Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works | Edward Baxter Perry
British Dictionary definitions for tune up
to adjust (a musical instrument) to a particular pitch, esp a standard one
(esp of an orchestra or other instrumental ensemble) to tune (instruments) to a common pitch
(tr) to adjust (an engine) in (a car, etc) to improve performance
adjustments made to an engine to improve its performance
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with tune-up
Adjust machinery so it is in proper condition, as in I took the car in to be tuned up. [Early 1900s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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