as in to devise
to create or think of by clever use of the imagination
political spin doctors who can vamp up a justification for just about anything
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for vamp (up)
Verb
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The most visible plans are those devised by the same international custodians who have engineered postwar order elsewhere in the Middle East.—
Mohammed R. Mhawish,
New Yorker,
14 Oct. 2025 -
To that end, the Charlotte Symphony commissioned Grammy-winning composer Mason Bates to devise a brief musical signature called a sonic logo for the orchestra.—
Adam Bell,
Charlotte Observer,
13 Oct. 2025
Verb
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SpaceX’s luck appears to be turning, as the company notched a second straight successful test flight of the Starship launch system — the most powerful rocket ever constructed — on Monday evening.—
Jackie Wattles,
CNN Money,
14 Oct. 2025
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Exercises focused on how to find and purify water, fish and hunt for animals, forage for edible plants, find dry wood to build a fire and construct palm leaf-sapling lean-to shelters.—
Kit Bernardi,
USA Today,
14 Oct. 2025
Verb
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One of the smartest things the subgroup of three commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick did in concocting a 12-team CFP format was to grant automatic playoff berths to the top six conference champions (later five after the Pac-12’s collapse).—
Chris Vannini,
New York Times,
11 Oct. 2025
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Maybe the purposefully ambiguous coda was concocted to prove some sort of Rashomon-style truth-is-subjective point.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
9 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Nobel, who died in 1896, invented dynamite.—
Kim Hjelmgaard,
USA Today,
9 Oct. 2025
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The nuclear age invented inspections and counting rules; the digital age can invent neutral testbeds.—
MSNBC Newsweek,
MSNBC Newsweek,
8 Oct. 2025
Verb
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The hope is that leaking this footage, as well as other assets in the coming weeks, will drum up the buzz needed to get the movie made.—
Nick Romano,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Oct. 2025
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Intel, the once-dominant chipmaker, is in a fight for its life that requires it to aggressively move into leading-edge chips, including those optimized for AI, while drumming up the funding to float that expensive transition.—
Alyson Shontell,
Fortune,
8 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Vamp (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/vamp%20%28up%29. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.
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