drum up

present singular third person drums up · participle present drumming up · participle past drummed up · past drummed up

1. idiomaticTo generate or encourage; to campaign for.

   The candidate gave speeches, shook hands, and kissed babies in an effort to drum up support before the election.

   2 more examples

   From 1910, to drum up custom, the Metropolitan would operate a luxury Pullman service from Verney Junction to Aldgate.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 73

   In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.

   2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74

2. UKslangtransitiveTo prepare food or drink with improvised implements, e.g. while camping; especially, to make tea in something other than a tea kettle.