chalk up
Britishverb
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to score or register (something)
we chalked up 100 in the game
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to credit (money) to an account etc (esp in the phrase chalk it up )
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Score or earn, as in She chalked up enough points to be seeded first in the tournament . This term alludes to recording accounts (and later, scores) in chalk on a slate. [c. 1700]
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Credit or ascribe, as They chalked their success up to experience . [First half of 1900s]
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.
Given those gains, it would be hard to chalk up today’s moves to much more than profit taking.
From Barron's ● May 12, 2026
But shares are off about 5% in Tuesday morning action, which some analysts chalk up to Palantir’s sky-high valuation.
From MarketWatch ● May 5, 2026
Those who know Michael, who is also a Stanford-trained lawyer, chalk up his public bellicosity toward Anthropic to a fierce professional loyalty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
LeBron James strolled to the scorer’s table Tuesday night and went through his pregame routine of throwing chalk up in the air, an iconic moment in his NBA-record 23rd season and on his 41st birthday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2025
He began to chalk up a list of all the student’s names.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
