get someone's back up
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to annoy or irritate someone
Literally: cause someone's back to rise
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ I heard a rumour that James has been arguing with Aston Forbes a lot lately and generally getting everyone's back up.
Now I must admit my first thoughts of it were it really gets my back up for some reason or other.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “get someone's back up” mean?
to annoy or irritate someone Literally: cause someone's back to rise
Is “get someone's back up” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.