checkup
Americannoun
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checkups
plural
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a comprehensive physical examination.
He went to the doctor for a checkup.
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an examination or close scrutiny, as for verification, accuracy, or comparison.
They gave the motor a checkup.
noun
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an examination to see if something is in order
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med a medical examination, esp one taken at regular intervals to verify a normal state of health or discover a disease in its early stages
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of checkup
1885–90, noun use of verb phrase check up
Explanation
When your doctor gives you a physical exam, you can call it a checkup. During a checkup, you'll probably be weighed and have your blood pressure taken. You might get a yearly checkup at your doctor's office, or go in for a checkup after a minor car accident, just to make sure you're okay. A routine visit to the dentist is also a checkup. The word checkup first appeared around 1920, from the idea that a doctor has a checklist of things to test or examine.
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:
But when he saw Mexican and Venezuelan army medics giving free services at a refugee camp the government set on a golf course here, he decided to bring his whole family by for a checkup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
In the Fix My Portfolio column, Beth Pinsker provided advice for a four-point midyear money checkup.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 26, 2026
Most presidential check-up reports, though, contain details of mundane ailments: "Doctors removed a precancerous skin lesion from the tip of his nose", reads a New York Times report on Bill Clinton's annual checkup from 1996.
From BBC ● May 30, 2026
At a routine 20-week checkup, however, she learned that she was suffering from preterm premature rupture of membranes and that her baby would not survive.
From Slate ● May 4, 2026
He had been held up by Madam Pomfrey’s fussing about, insisting on giving him one last checkup, so the Great Hall was already full.
From "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
Afterward, Germany’s public healthcare covered my pregnancy checkups, a C-section, two nights in the hospital and at-home midwife visits.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
But the appointment arrives amid continued public discussion surrounding Trump’s physical condition, stamina, and increasingly frequent medical checkups.
From Salon ● May 25, 2026
Just 16% of school-age kids on Medi-Cal saw an eye doctor between 2022 and 2024 for first-time eye exams, continuing vision checkups or glasses, according to a report commissioned by the California Optometric Assn.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
Women are more than four times as likely as men to attend routine checkups, largely because of gynecologic and obstetric visits.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 30, 2026
It was all tall archways and gold foil wallpaper, too decadent to resemble the stark hospital rooms we knew from our checkups.
From "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by emily m. danforth
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.
