haul up
Britishverb
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informal (tr) to call to account or criticize
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nautical to sail (a vessel) closer to the wind
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Come to a halt, stop, as in We hauled up in front of the hotel .
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Bring someone before a superior or other authority, call someone to account. For example, This was the third time he'd been hauled up before the judge . [Mid-1800s]
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.
Since 2007, more than 920 humpback whales have been maimed or killed by long line ropes that commercial crabbers use to haul up cages from the sea floor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2025
Sampling the zooplankton, as Johnson did, can haul up the organisms for identification, but it blurs the nuances of time and location that could indicate where each animal was in its journey.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 20, 2022
Carlos is lucky because the property he rents has a well and his family can haul up buckets of water to sell to neighbors.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 19, 2022
She would interrupt herself so we could watch lobster fishermen haul up their traps, help the crew raise the 500-pound anchor or refuel after an intense knitting session.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2017
He’d installed a pulley system to haul up a two-gallon water container he kept on the deck.
From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King
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.
