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Work up   /wərk əp/   Listen
Work up

verb
1.
Form or accumulate steadily.  Synonyms: build, build up, progress.  "Pressure is building up at the Indian-Pakistani border"
2.
Develop.  Synonym: get up.
3.
Bolster or strengthen.  Synonyms: build, build up, ramp up.  "Build up confidence" , "Ramp up security in the airports"
4.
Come up with.  Synonym: work out.  "We worked up an ad for our client"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Work up" Quotes from Famous Books



... memorial to Lord Palmerston. We have now carried six public meetings, Sheffield, Oldham, Stockport, Preston, Ashton, Glasgow. We have three to come off now ready, Burnley, Bury, Macclesfield, and others in preparation. My plan is to work up through the secondary towns to the chief ones and take the latter, Liverpool, Manchester, London, etc., as we come upon the assembling of Parliament.... By dint of perseverance I think we shall ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... told him you were the laziest fellow and the best dresser in the town—in fact, cut out by nature to serve the government. Good-bye—I shall ask you to dine with me some of these days—but not yet awhile—you must work up to that. And now, Fotherby, to show you how deep an interest I take in your welfare, you shall give me your arm ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... I can manage the letterpress all right once I get the hang of things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a gum-tree look as if it was growing .... And Gibbs hates having amateur snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness didn't Biddy join me! .... If she'd only had the decency to let me know in time WHY she couldn't.... ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... country where no laws prevail to protect one against desertions and theft. Moreover, I knew that the negroes who would have to go with me, as long as they believed I had property in advance, would work up to it willingly, as they would be the gainers by doing so; whilst, with nothing before them, they would be always endeavouring to thwart my advance, to save them from a trouble which their natural laziness would ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke


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