gin up

From gin (short for engine or generate) + up.

gin up (third-person singular simple present gins up, present participle ginning up, simple past and past participle ginned up)

1. (transitive, US) To generate, devise, or create.
   • 1998, Science & Government Report, volume 28, page 10:

     So as the six-year conceptual design phase ends next month, and the design teams face extinction, the partners […] have begun frantic efforts to keep ITER alive, ginning up concepts for an "ITER light" that promise to cut costs in half while providing most of the features of the full-fat version.

   • 2013 January 16, Barack Obama, The Most Vulnerable Among Us:

     There will be pundits and politicians and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical all-out assault on liberty, not because that’s true but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.

   • 2021 March 24, Charlie Warzel, “What Are You Paying for When You Buy a GIF for $25,000?”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Her hope was that turning it into an NFT would be a bit of performance art and that the process would gin up conversation about the article but also about new ways for creators to make money and control the ownership of their work.

   • 2023 April 18, “CALLOUS MAN: A Parody of Piano Man by Don Caron and David Cohen”‎performed by Parody Project:

     Then I'll send out some tweets to help gin up the heat.

2. To set up a snare.
3. To exaggerate.
4. To stir up, stimulate, enliven, incite.

From gin (the drink) + up.

gin up (third-person singular simple present gins up, present participle ginning up, simple past and past participle ginned up)

1. (archaic, transitive) To make drunk, especially on gin.

   Hypernym: liquor up (broadly synonymous)

   • 1925, J. Allan Dunn, The Three Traders:

     Harrison was pretty well ginned-up when his guests arrived and he had proffered drinks freely and hospitably ever since.

• pungi