WORKED UP

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does worked up mean? 

• WORKED UP (adjective)
  The adjective WORKED UP has 1 sense:

1. (of persons) excessively affected by emotion

  Familiarity information: WORKED UP used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WORKED UP (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of persons) excessively affected by emotion

Synonyms:

aroused; emotional; excited; worked up

Context example:

she was worked up about all the noise

Similar:

agitated (troubled emotionally and usually deeply)

 Context examples 

My mind is all worked up.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was tranquil, yet her tranquillity was evidently constrained; and as her confusion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she worked up her mind to an appearance of courage.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"Yes, it's a new plot, and pretty well worked up—language good, and so on," was Mr. Dashwood's affable reply.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We passed the Straits and worked up to the Azores, where we fell in with the La Sabina from the Mauritius with sugar and spices.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The varieties in the fitting-up of the rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence on his habits, the picture of repose and domestic happiness it presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Six hundred beds of the common measure were brought in carriages, and worked up in my house; a hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the breadth and length; and these were four double: which, however, kept me but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, that was of smooth stone.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

"Just grand, an' thrilling, too. I was all worked up."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)