phone up

present singular third person phones up · participle present phoning up · participle past phoned up · past phoned up

1. ambitransitiveTo phone; to contact by telephone.

   ‘I don’t believe it!’ cried Maxine, who had only phoned up in order to relieve her own boredom and have a good moan about Serena.

   1994, Jill Mansell, chapter 14, in Sheer Mischief, London: Headline, published 2001, →ISBN, page 118

   Synonyms: call, give a ring, phone, ring

2. transitiveTo order by telephone.

   "If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life."

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC