dredge up

verb

dredged up; dredging up; dredges up

: to start talking or thinking again about (something unpleasant that happened a long time ago)

Reporters dredged up the fact that the senator avoided the military draft.

She didn't like to dredge up bad memories.

Examples of dredge up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Stan got to be quite expert at dredging up large walleyes from a couple of deep holes. — Marc Terziev, Outdoor Life, 25 June 2026

In the wake of Tuesday’s incident, there was a rush to dredge up footage or photos of Messi’s handball against the Netherlands in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final in Qatar — a very clear deliberate handball which was not punished by a yellow card. — Graham Scott, New York Times, 19 June 2026

But colleagues’ cattiness and her own insecurity dredge up traumatic memories and send her spiralling into bulimia. — Sheldon Pearce, New Yorker, 12 June 2026

The reorganization plan included a long list of causes of action the trust could look into, which could dredge up more information about how everything went wrong at the company. — Evan Clark, Footwear News, 27 May 2026

Rhymes for dredge up

• buttercup
• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup