How to Use bust up in a Sentence

bust up

verb
  • Pictures from the scene showed the four cars busted up.
    — Alexa Herrera, CBS News, 6 Apr. 2026
  • Jenna walked in the first day and busted up laughing.
    — Marc Malkin, Variety, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Chicago police had to bust up a pair of street takeovers early Sunday morning.
    — Cbs Chicago Team, CBS News, 6 Apr. 2026
  • Some were nodding, brows furrowed, as if in a foreign-language class; others were trying not to bust up laughing.
    — Literary Hub, 13 Feb. 2026
  • For years, scientists have sought ways to bust up this group of drug-resistant bugs as well as others that are able to sidestep our ever-evolving ways to kill them.
    — New Atlas, 10 Feb. 2026
  • The collision busted up the wardens’ car, but miraculously neither was hurt.
    — Dave Duffey, Outdoor Life, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Afterward, Harris busts up Play’s party, still looking for Kid.
    — Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 13 Feb. 2026
  • Will David Ellison bust up WBD’s engagement to Netflix?
    — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 8 Dec. 2025
  • But the impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2026
  • But the impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.
    — Mark Z. Barabak, Mercury News, 14 Apr. 2026
  • Yet one country is busting up cocaine rings by relying on legal enforcement and the integrity of its investigators and prosecutors.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Monitor, 8 Oct. 2025
  • So much so that the official Carol Burnett Show YouTube channel has several 15-minute salutes of Burnett, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence, and others busting up and ruining the bit.
    — Jordan Hoffman, Entertainment Weekly, 5 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bust up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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