dredge up

phrasal 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

But as the battle to save Ransom wages on, a mysterious cowboy drifts into town, dredging up secrets from the past. —Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 1 Aug. 2025

While dredging up this information, Republican HPSCI staff claim to have faced stiff resistance. —Robert Schmad, The Washington Examiner, 1 Aug. 2025

At its heart are twins Zac and Caitlyn (Cimino and Melissa Collazo), whose return to Ironwood with their mom dredges up their connection to their estranged father, a street-racing legend Zac soon becomes obsessed with emulating. —Manuel Betancourt, Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2025

Before ending up at the antique shop in southern Taiwan, it had been dredged up from the Penghu Channel by commercial fishermen. —Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Apr. 2025

Rhymes for dredge up

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