shape up

Questions about shape up

What does shape up mean?

shape up means "develop in a positive way".

What is another word for shape up?

Close synonyms include progress, come on, come along, advance, get on. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is shape up a common word?

shape up is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.