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

For Lorde, the new discussion has dredged up unsubstantiated but similar rumors about her connection with Jack Antonoff, who produced 2017’s Melodrama. —Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 27 June 2025

Comments Nicole Kidman and Mark Strong break down the fifth episode of Nine Perfect Strangers season 2, a flashback that dredges up revelations about their characters, Masha Dmitrichenko and David Sharpe. —Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 11 June 2025

One of these items is a drill that will plunge three feet into the lunar ground, dredging up a small pile of soil. —Ella Jeffries, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Feb. 2025

But as the battle to save Ransom wages on, a mysterious cowboy drifts into town, dredging up secrets from the past. —Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 24 June 2025

Rhymes for dredge up

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