dredge up

present singular third person dredges up · participle present dredging up · participle past dredged up · past dredged up

1. figurativelyTo find by diligently searching, especially from unsavory sources.

   Where did you dredge up the idea that they didn't know what hospital he was born in?

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dredge, up.

   Young, dense seed mussels are dredged up and relaid in more sheltered areas, where they will not be destroyed by storms.

   1970, Maurice Burton, Robert Burton, The international wildlife encyclopedia, volume 1, page 1713

   2 more examples

   The rush to dredge resulted in engineering problems, with those who had not first ascertained the depth of the wash by boring later dredging up only buckets of water.

   1997, David Malcolm Grant, Bulls, bears, and elephants: a history of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, page 91

   The soil dredged up was dumped on the lagoon's shores, which also destroyed large sections of the nearby mangroves and fresh water sources that provide nutrients and oxygen to the local ecosystem

   2002, Anthropologica, volume 44, number 1, page 92