put on speed?

[roseriver1012]

Does the phrase" put on speed (of a car) " mean to increase speed? Why can't I find this meaning in the dictionary?
And can I say "add to speed (of a car)"?

 

[emsr2d2]

Does the phrase" put on speed (of a car) " mean to increase speed? Why can't I find this meaning in the dictionary?
And can I say "add to speed (of a car)"?

Where did you see "put on speed", prompting you to ask this question?

 

[roseriver1012]

Where did you see "put on speed", prompting you to ask this question?

I saw the phrase in a passage from an English exam paper. The context is that "I" saw a suspicious-looking car, and "I _____________ speed and went after it." The options for the blank include phrases like "put on", "added to" and "took up". The answer is "put on". So I wonder if "put on speed" means to increase speed. Could you help me? Thanks.

 

[Rover_KE]

In future, roseriver, please give the context in post #1 instead of having to be asked for it.

Yes, 'I put on speed' means 'I increased speed'.



put on
vb (tr)

• to clothe oneself in
• (usually passive) to adopt (an attitude or feeling) insincerely: his misery was just put on
• to present or stage (a play, show, etc)
• to increase or add: she put on weight, the batsman put on fifty runs before lunch
• to cause (an electrical device) to function
• (also preposition) to wager (money) on a horse race, game, etc
• (also preposition) to impose as a burden or levy: to put a tax on cars
• to cause (a bowler) to bowl

(Collins)

 

[roseriver1012]

In future, roseriver, please give the context in post #1 instead of having to be asked for it.

Yes, 'I put on speed' means 'I increased speed'.



put on
vb (tr)

• to clothe oneself in
• (usually passive) to adopt (an attitude or feeling) insincerely: his misery was just put on
• to present or stage (a play, show, etc)
• to increase or add: she put on weight, the batsman put on fifty runs before lunch
• to cause (an electrical device) to function
• (also preposition) to wager (money) on a horse race, game, etc
• (also preposition) to impose as a burden or levy: to put a tax on cars
• to cause (a bowler) to bowl

(Collins)

Can't I say "add to speed"?

 

[Rover_KE]

No — that collocation is unnatural.

 

[SoothingDave]

"Put on speed" is not natural to me. "I sped up" would be the natural way. Or "I increased my speed."

 

[emsr2d2]

I, too, find "I put on speed" very unnatural. I might say "I put on a burst of speed" or something similar. Were "put on", "added to" and "took up" the only choices?

 

[Rover_KE]

Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key
Wont you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me

(Gershwin)

 

[emsr2d2]

I actually have no problem with "put on some speed" in the same way that I think "put on a burst of speed" is OK. What I find unnatural is the simple "put on speed".

 

[Raymott]

"Put on speed" sounds absolutely normal to me. It means accelerate.

@OP "Why can't I find this meaning in the dictionary?"
Because dictionaries traditionally don't define phrases. Although there is a tendency these days to give examples, eg. for "put on", there is simply no way that a dictionary can normally deal with strings of words. It's unrealistic to expect "put on speed" to appear in a dictionary.
For phrases, you might be better served with an English-Chinese translator in a sentence, "The car put on speed". This would be less reliable, and you might need to check a dictionary, as well as your common sense, to check the individual components.

 

[Tdol]

You can use sites like Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BYU-BNC) to check for phrases- they won't give you definitions, but they will often confirm whether a phrase is in use or not.