tank upverb/ˈtæŋk ʌp/

• 1

  To fill up (for example, a tank in a vehicle with gas, petrol, etc.).

  • A painter was desirous of drawing the elephant, which was kept in the menagerie at Versailles, […] [H]e [the elephant] turned his resentment on the master, and tanking up a quantity of water in his trunk, threw it on the paper upon which the painter was drawing, and spoiled it.
  • One way of insuring that your baby eats enough is to increase his intake during the day, before 11 P.M. By "tanking up," as I call this strategy, you get more food into his tummy, which, in turn, enables him to sleep through longer stretches at night. Tanking up is also great for growth spurts, those two- or three-day periods when your baby eats more than usual[…].
• 2

  slangTo intoxicate oneself, especially with alcohol.

  • He was pretty well tanked up with extra dry Mumm and heady old Chambertin, and was drowsy and uproarious by turns.
  • [H]e loves to monkey with the flowing bowl, and gets beastly drunk. He attended a banquet to-day at which I was the honored guest, and he disgraced me by tanking up to the full extent of his capacity.
• 3

  To install a tank.

  • Every valley was once tanked up for the purpose of irrigation, or the use of the herd,—indelible marks of reproach to succeeding generations, or at least to those by whom they have been governed.