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• follow-up
  follow-up

  noun

  the act of following up.
• follow up
  follow up

  verb

  to pursue or investigate (a person, evidence, etc) closely

follow-up

American  

[fol-oh-uhp] / ˈfɒl oʊˌʌp /

noun

• follow-ups
  plural

1. the act of following up.

2. an action or thing that serves to increase the effectiveness of a previous one, as a second or subsequent letter, phone call, or visit.

3. Also called follow. Journalism.

   1. a news story providing additional information on a story or article previously published.

   2. Also called supplementary story, sidebar. a minor news story used to supplement a related story of major importance.

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adjective

1. designed or serving to follow up, especially to increase the effectiveness of a previous action.

   a follow-up interview; a follow-up offer.

2. of or relating to action that follows an initial treatment, course of study, etc..

   follow-up care for mental patients; a follow-up survey.

follow up British  

verb

1. to pursue or investigate (a person, evidence, etc) closely

2. to continue (action) after a beginning, esp to increase its effect

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noun

1. 1. something done to reinforce an initial action

   2. ( as modifier )

      a follow-up letter

2. med a routine examination of a patient at various intervals after medical or surgical treatment

follow up Idioms  

1. Carry to completion. For example, I'm following up their suggestions with concrete proposals . Also see follow through .

2. Increase the effectiveness or enhance the success of something by further action. For example, She followed up her interview with a phone call . [Late 1700s]

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• follow-ups
  plural

Etymology

Origin of follow-up

First recorded in 1920–25; noun, adj. use of verb phrase follow up

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

follow-up follow up follow-ups

The tip in Philadelphia was routed to spam and didn’t prompt any police follow-up.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

The former board member did not answer follow-up questions from a Times reporter.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026

The results remained encouraging at the later follow-up, conducted eight weeks after the final treatment in CBL-0205 and 12 weeks after treatment in CBL-0204.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026

A follow-up, sent 16 minutes later, includes a comment from CalMac and was sent to Flynn and Transport Scotland officials "for awareness".

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

The morning after the two-day American Equal Rights Association meeting adjourned, Stanton and Anthony called friends of women’s suffrage to a follow-up meeting at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

In this year’s follow up, “The Social Reckoning,” which is in theaters this week, Zuckerberg is a supporting character.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

The literature laureate will be revealed on Thursday, with some pundits suggesting that the Swedish Academy could follow up last year's award to Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai with a woman writer, possibly from Latin America.

From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026

Regulators will be able to to find leaks and follow up faster to make sure operators have made repairs, Buckley added.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

I want to follow up on what you said about standing doctrine and the environmental cases.

From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026

How should we follow up on these spectacular advances?

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

"People don't know when to expect a reply or who else can help, and that uncertainty is what leads to the 'just-in-case' follow-ups," says Charlotte Davies, a career expert at Linkedin.

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026

Moreover, the follow-ups indicated to Disney that other Pixar franchises could be a viable revenue stream, no matter the public’s response to the films.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

The research showed a measurable decline in the performance of the prefrontal cortex between initial scans and five-year follow-ups.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026

While the original papers claimed advances for quantum computing and made their way into top scientific journals, the individual follow-ups could not make it past the editors at those same journals.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 29, 2026

When Moore told Golde he wanted to start doing his follow-ups closer to home, Golde offered to pay for the plane tickets and put him up in style at the Beverly Wilshire.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot