phrasal verb · informal
spice up
/spaɪs ʌp/SPICE up
Band 5-6speakingtask2
to make food more flavourful by adding spices; can also mean to make something more interesting
Examples
“She decided to spice up the soup with some chilli flakes.”
“To spice up the presentation, he included more colourful charts.”
“A dash of lemon can really spice up a salad.”
Band 8 sentence
“To make the report more engaging, you can spice up your arguments with a relevant real-life example.”
Collocations
- spice up the dish
- spice things up
Word family
spice noun/verbspicy adjective
Common mistakes
spice on→spice up
to spicy→to spice up
Say it for a higher band
5add spice→6season→7+spice up
Synonyms
season
Easily confused
season
“Remember to season the steak with salt and pepper before grilling.”
Related words
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In Food & Cooking
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