What is the past tense of 'speed up'?

The past tense is 'sped up'. Example: 'We sped up the deployment pipeline last sprint.'

Can I say 'speed up it' or should I say 'speed it up'?

Use 'speed it up'. With pronouns like 'it' or 'them', the pronoun goes between 'speed' and 'up'.

Is 'speed up' too casual for technical documents?

No, 'speed up' works in most contexts. For very formal documents, you might use 'accelerate' or 'improve performance'.

What's the difference between 'speed up' and 'optimize'?

'Speed up' focuses on making something faster. 'Optimize' is broader — it can mean better speed, efficiency, memory use, or other improvements.

Can 'speedup' be used as a noun?

Yes. 'Speedup' (one word) is a noun meaning improvement in speed. Example: 'We achieved a 3x speedup with the new algorithm.'

What Does "Speed Up" Mean in Tech?

Commonness
Versatility
Formality	CasualFormalNeutral
Spoken ↔ Written	SpokenWrittenBoth
Directness ↔ Diplomatic	DirectDiplomaticNeutral
Region

Say it like this

✓We need to speed up the build process.

✓Can we speed this up somehow?

✓I'm looking into ways to speed up our CI pipeline.

✓The new cache should speed things up significantly.

✓Let's speed up the review cycle.

Real examples

Standup

"Today I'm working on speeding up the database queries."

Slack message

"Hey team, any ideas on how to speed up the deployment?"

GitHub PR

"This change speeds up the API response time by 40%."

Jira ticket

"Goal: Speed up page load time to under 2 seconds."

Retrospective

"What can we do to speed up code reviews?"

Sprint planning

"We should prioritize tickets that speed up our release process."

Pair programming

"Let me show you a trick that speeds up testing locally."

Don't say this

✕We need to speed the process.

✓We need to speed up the process.— 'Speed up' is a phrasal verb — you need both words together.

✕I speed upped the code.

✓I sped up the code.— The past tense of 'speed up' is 'sped up', not 'speed upped'.

✕Let's speed up it.

✓Let's speed it up.— With pronouns (it, them), the pronoun goes between 'speed' and 'up'.

Other forms

base form

speed up

"We need to speed up the process."

past tense

sped up

"The new cache sped up our queries."

present participle

speeding up

"I'm working on speeding up the build."

noun form

speedup

"We saw a 2x speedup after the optimization."

Often used with

speed up the processMost common collocation — works for any workflow

speed up developmentMaking software development faster

speed up deliveryGetting features to users sooner

speed up the buildMaking CI/CD pipelines run faster

speed up performanceMaking code or systems run more quickly

Similar words

accelerateMore formal, often used in business documents

optimizeFocuses on efficiency, not just speed

improve performanceBroader — includes speed and other factors

fast-trackUsually means to prioritize and rush something through

Opposites

slow downdelaydeceleratebottleneck

Practice

Try it

4 quick exercises

Choose the most natural sentence

1. How would you tell your team you made the tests faster?

I speed the tests.I sped up the tests.I speeded up the tests.I made speed to tests.

Find the error

2. Let's speed up it before the release.

Let's speed up itLet's speed it upLet's speed them up

Complete the sentence

3. The new caching layer ___ ___ our API response times.

Rewrite more naturally

4. We need to make the build process faster.

More words

optimize bottleneck performance efficiency iterate ship faster

Questions

Quick poll

Have you said "speed up" in a standup this week?

Want more structured practice like this? Our English for Programmers course covers real workplace English in depth.

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