crank up

verb cranks up · cranking up · cranked up

1. To start something mechanical, an act that often used to involve cranking. Let's crank up the old motorcycle and take it for a spin.
2. idiomatic, reflexive To muster up the mental energy to do something. I kept thinking: this has nothing to do with my interests, with what I believe is a desirable subject for literature. I was doing it as a performance. I kept cranking myself up to perform, to meet the demands of the genre. I know this sounds terribly inartistic.
3. idiomatic, slang To prepare (something).
4. idiomatic To increase, as the volume, power or energy of something. He cranked up the volume to 11.
5. To describe in praiseworthy terms; to promote. Was the great machine ever what it was cranked up to be?
6. intransitive, slang To inject heroin.