brace up

brace up (third-person singular simple present braces up, present participle bracing up, simple past and past participle braced up)

1. (transitive, construction) To strengthen with bracing material.
   • 2007, Robert Coram, American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day:

     Ed wired the house, dug a basement with pick and shovel, braced it up, bricked it, and installed a furnace and a coal chute […]

2. (intransitive) To become more optimistic.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To strengthen (oneself), become stronger or more resilient.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; […] . Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.