spring up

present singular third person springs up · participle present springing up · past sprang up · participle past sprung up

1. intransitiveTo appear suddenly.

   A breeze had sprung up, pushing the ship back within range of the Spanish cannons.

   Synonyms: pop up

2. figurativelyintransitiveTo come rapidly into existence.

   In 1924 the Hashemite King Hussein was driven out of the Hedjaz by Ibn Saud, and a state of war sprang up between the new kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Trans-Jordan.

   1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 167

   2 more examples

   In the 1890s and in the early years of the present century there was considerable building development in the area around Sanderstead, Warlingham and Oxted, where large villas were springing up. East Grinstead, Tunbridge Wells and Uckfield were growing fast, as was that loosely knit "subtopia"—neither town, village nor country—which is known collectively as Crowborough.

   1960 November, H. P. White, “The evolution of train services on the Southern's Oxted line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 662

   The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   Synonyms: upspring