call on
Idioms-
Also, call upon.
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Make a request, ask for, choose, as in We are calling upon you to run for chairman , or The teacher called on Joe to answer . [c. 1400]
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Pay a brief visit, as in The salesman said he'd call on me in the morning . Shakespeare had this usage in Antony and Cleopatra (1:4): “I'll call upon you ere you go to bed.” [Late 1500s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In a brief phone call on Wednesday, Welk confirmed to The Times that the company was working with investigators, but declined to comment on the incident.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
One recent morning, I was reading the newspaper in a sleepy Manhattan cafe when two young women sat beside me and proceeded to conduct a work call on speakerphone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
"I call on states and companies to mobilise urgently through multilateral fora to chart a path for action to govern advanced, frontier Al models, grounded in international human rights law."
From Barron's ● Sep. 14, 2026
Campaigners, survivors and experts have gathered at Stormont to call on the executive to make a commitment to reduce the cancer death rate by 15% by 2040.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
The night before, a baby had died, and with a basket of her own fresh bread Mama was making the prescribed call on the family.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
