work up

present singular third person works up · participle present working up · participle past worked up · past worked up

1. To raise; to excite; to stir up.

   He worked up the public's passions to rage.

   1 more example

   In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the pitch of eagerness.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   Synonyms: rouse, animate, awaken, electrify, enflame, enkindle, enthrill, exagitate

2. To develop.

   work up a sweat

   3 more examples

   I shall have worked up an appetite with all this heavy work.

   "See how it's working up; we shall have thunder and lightning."

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 185

   "As evidence of the degraded nature of the prisoner's mind," said Quin. "That's what they call working up a case."

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 127

3. transitivemedicineTo give (a patient) a general medical examination to assess health and fitness.
4. obsoletetransitiveTo use up (material, etc.).
5. obsoletenauticalTo set at an irksome or needless task.