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Synonyms

chalk up

British  

verb

  1. to score or register (something)

    we chalked up 100 in the game

  2. to credit (money) to an account etc (esp in the phrase chalk it up )

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

chalk up Idioms  
  1. 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]

  2. 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.

See Examples For:

Sure, party leaders can try to chalk up this result to a one-off mistake.

From Slate ● Aug. 5, 2026

Around 300 National Trust staff and volunteers will be involved, carrying about 17 tonnes of fresh chalk up the steep hillside, which in places has a gradient of roughly one in three.

From BBC ● May 27, 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

If he weren’t a trauma doctor, you might chalk up the missing headgear to romantic imagery and an homage to “Then Came Bronson.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 6, 2026

He began to chalk up a list of all the student’s names.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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