What Does Hurry Up Mean?
Hurry up means to do something more quickly because there is not much time. It is usually an order or a plea.
Hurry up! The bus is coming.
We have to hurry up with the cake before the guests arrive.
It also has a second use: to make someone or something go faster. You can hurry a person up.
🗣️ Natural Examples
Hurry up, or we will be late for school!
Could you hurry up with the paint? I need it now.
I wish the bus would hurry up and come.
Please hurry the kids up. The film starts in five minutes.
Can you hurry the order up? We are very hungry.
✂️ Can You Separate It?
Sometimes. It depends on whether there is an object.
No object: nothing to split. You hurry up yourself.
✅ Hurry up!
✅ Hurry up with the homework.
✅ Hurry up and eat.
With an object: separable. With a pronoun, the pronoun goes in the middle.
✅ Hurry the kids up.
✅ Hurry them up.
❌ Hurry up them.
🛠️ How to Use It
- Past tense: hurried up. Past participle: hurried up. Note the spelling: hurry becomes hurried.
- Add a thing to hurry with: hurry up with + the thing. Hurry up with your breakfast.
- Add an action with and: hurry up and + a verb. Hurry up and come.
- An order to others: Hurry up! can sound sharp, so ask nicely if you can.
- To make someone else go faster: hurry somebody up.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
A pronoun belongs in the middle when you hurry someone else.
❌ Can you hurry up them?
✅ Can you hurry them up?
Use and with the action.
❌ Hurry up to eat.
✅ Hurry up and eat.
Hurry becomes hurried.
❌ We hurryed up.
✅ We hurried up.
Mum: Hurry up, the bus is here!
Eli: I am hurrying.
Mum: You are tying one shoelace.
Eli: I am hurrying carefully.
💡 The OddLingo Trick
Ask yourself: who is going faster?
- You, or the person you are talking to? Hurry up. Nothing to split.
- Somebody else, or something else? Hurry it up. The pronoun goes in the middle.
And when two actions follow, remember the little word and: hurry up and eat.