come up

British  

verb

1. to come to a place regarded as higher

2. (of the sun) to rise

3. to begin

   a wind came up

4. to be regurgitated or vomited

5. to present itself or be discussed

   that question will come up again

6. to begin a term, esp one's first term, at a college or university

7. to appear from out of the ground

   my beans have come up early this year

8. informal to win

   have your premium bonds ever come up?

9. to be faced with; come into conflict or competition with

10. to equal or meet a standard

    that just doesn't come up to scratch

11. to produce or find

    she always comes up with the right answer

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come up Idioms  

1. Arise, present itself, as in This question never came up . [Mid-1800s]

2. Rise (from a lower place to a higher one) as in We'll leave as soon as the sun comes up . [9th century]

3. Also, come up to . Approach, come near, as in He came up and said hello , or The dog came right up to Nora . [Early 1700s]

4. Also, come up to . Rise in status or value, be equal to, as in His paintings will never come up to his teacher's , or This officer came up through the ranks . [c. 1600] A variant is , used for someone who has risen in rank, wealth, or status; for example, He has really come up in the world—he now owns a yacht , or I could see at once that she was a woman who would rise in the world . Also see the subsequent idioms beginning with come up .

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

come up

And yet, "peptides come up with my conversations with patients every single day," he told AFP.

From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026

In New York City's Times Square, one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the world, photographs of Wang Wang come up on a gigantic digital screen every 35 minutes.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

In Japan, fans come up with a song for each player and sing it happily and relentlessly.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

International Business Machines warned last week that its quarterly revenue had come up short as customers drained their budgets on artificial-intelligence hardware, leaving less room to invest in software.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026

Sometimes he’d want to play even when we weren’t in study time, like when we were lining up to go outside and he thought he’d come up with a particularly sly question.

From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan

Related Words

• arise
• crop up
• occur
• rise
• turn up