strike up

present singular third person strikes up · participle present striking up · past struck up · participle past struck up · archaic participle past rare stricken up

1. idiomatictransitiveTo start something with somebody else, such as a conversation or relationship.

   He struck up a friendship with Redford that was to last for many years.

   2 more examples

   To make him feel welcome, she struck up a conversation with the newly arrived guest.

   He repeated to Chad what he had been saying in the court to Waymarsh; how there was no doubt whatever that his sister would find the latter a kindred spirit, no doubt of the alliance, based on an exchange of views, that the pair would successfully strike up.

   1903 September 28, Henry James, The Ambassadors, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC

2. ergativeidiomaticintransitiveTo start something, usually playing live music.

   The band struck up and everyone started to dance.

   2 more examples

   The bride entered the church just as the "Wedding March" struck up.

   Strike vp the Drum and martch corragiouſly, Fortune her ſelfe dooth ſit vpon our Creſts.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii

3. To raise (as sheet metal), in making dishes, pans, etc., by blows or pressure in a die.