tank up

A man in New Hampshire, USA, tanking up his car with gas (sense 1)

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtæŋk ʌp/

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tank up (third-person singular simple present tanks up, present participle tanking up, simple past and past participle tanked up)

1. (transitive, intransitive, Canada, US) To fill up (for example, a tank in a vehicle with gas, petrol, etc.).
   • 1852, Ludwig Gantter, “Vierter Abschntt. Bilder aus der Natur. [Fourth Section. Pictures from Nature.]”, in Study and Recreation. Englishe Chrestomathie für Real- und Gelehrte-schulen und den Privatgebrauch [...] Erster Cursus für mittlere Classen [English Chrestomathy for Secondary and High Schools and Private Use [...] First Course for Intermediate Classes], 2nd edition, Stuttgart: Verlag Von Ebner & Seubert, →OCLC, subsection 1 (The Elephant), chapter IV (Stories about Elephants), page 130:

     A painter was desirous of drawing the elephant, which was kept in the menagerie at Versailles, […] [H]e [the elephant] turned his resentment on the master, and tanking up a quantity of water in his trunk, threw it on the paper upon which the painter was drawing, and spoiled it.

   • 2005, Tracy Hogg, Melinda Blau, “Your Baby’s Liquid Diet: Feeding Issues in the First Six Months”, in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (By Teaching You How to Ask the Right Questions): Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior—beyond the Basics from Infancy to Toddlerhood, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, page 93:

     One way of insuring that your baby eats enough is to increase his intake during the day, before 11 P.M. By "tanking up," as I call this strategy, you get more food into his tummy, which, in turn, enables him to sleep through longer stretches at night. Tanking up is also great for growth spurts, those two- or three-day periods when your baby eats more than usual […].

   • 2006 July 23, Robert J[acob] Samuelson, “Is Oil at the Tipping Point?”, in Newsweek‎, volume 148, New York, N.Y.: Newsweek, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 February 2018, page 32:

     We Americans have grumbled loudly about rising gasoline prices while tanking up as if almost nothing has happened. Over the Fourth of July holiday, a record 40.7 million Americans took trips of more than 50 miles, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier.

   • 2014, Lindsay McKenna, chapter 10, in Breaking Point, Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin HQN, →ISBN, page 140:

     The team was in ready mode; Gabe could feel it. They were scarfing up food, tanking up, knowing they would be freezing their asses off all day on that rocky ridge.

2. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To intoxicate oneself, especially with alcohol.
   • 1883 July 6, Richard Weightman, “Didn’t Pay Attention to the Game”, in Life, volume II, number 29, New York, N.Y.: Published at the Life Office, […], published 19 July 1883, →OCLC, page 28:

     He was pretty well tanked up with extra dry Mumm and heady old Chambertin, and was drowsy and uproarious by turns.

   • 1895 July 15, “A Sure Cure that Didn’t Work”, in G. A. Shraque, editor, Express Gazette: The Official Journal of the Express Service of America, volume XX, number 7, Cincinnati, Oh.: Express Gazette Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 160, column 2:

     [H]e loves to monkey with the flowing bowl, and gets beastly drunk. He attended a banquet to-day at which I was the honored guest, and he disgraced me by tanking up to the full extent of his capacity.

   • 1922 November 25, A[rthur] M[urray] Chisholm, “A Thousand a Plate”, in Western Story Magazine, volume XXX, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Street & Smith Corporation, →OCLC, chapter II, page 93, column 1:

     "Thanksgiving eve," he repeated. "We was to have a leetle celebration Thanksgiving eve." And he added somewhat anxiously: "You ain't forgot about that, Bill? It's an awful long time since we had a drink." / "Last time you had too many," Skookum Bill reminded him. / "What if I had?" Dobbs asked, in injured tones. "I get durn little fun in life, and I'm gettin' old. About the only time I feel good and like I used to is when I'm tanked up. Wait twenty years and you'll know."

   • 1953 April, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”, in Nine Stories, LB Books mass market paperback edition, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, published May 1991, →OCLC, page 117:

     I have a feeling she went to work on some bastard in the kitchen. I just have a feeling. She always starts necking some bastard in the kitchen when she gets tanked up. I'm through. I swear to God I mean it this time.

   • 2004, Eugénie Seifer Olson, chapter 1, in Babe in Toyland, New York, N.Y.: Avon Trade, HarperCollins Publishers, →ISBN, page 11:

     A month earlier, in a fit of inspiration while tanked up on cheap beer, Michael and I painted the walls of my room a soft pale yellow. Now I feel like it's melting all around me, like I'm encased in a hot piece of buttered white toast.

3. (intransitive) To install a tank.
   • 1816, [Maurice] Keatinge, “Barcelona, Its Importance.—Cæsar Camp.—The Ebro.—Sierra Molina, and the Course of Its Waters”, in Travels in Europe and Africa […], London: Printed for Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, part I (France and Spain), page 86:

     Every valley was once tanked up for the purpose of irrigation, or the use of the herd,—indelible marks of reproach to succeeding generations, or at least to those by whom they have been governed.