1 A2 informal
To telephone someone.
"I'll call you up when I arrive at the airport."
“
I'm gonna call you up and tell you what to do.
— Chuck Berry, 'Memphis, Tennessee', 1959
separable
call up
B1 neutral separable transitive
To telephone someone, to conscript someone for military service, or to retrieve stored data or memories.
In plain English
To phone someone, or to make someone join the army, or to get information from a computer.
What does "call up" mean?
4 meanings, ordered from most common to least. Color-coded by CEFR level.
2 B2 idiomatic formal
To officially order someone to join the armed forces or report for military duty.
"Thousands of young men were called up at the start of the war."
“
He was called up to serve in the Second World War at the age of eighteen.
— Commonly reported in British WWII personal accounts; paraphrase of a widely documented historical fact.
separable
3 B1 neutral
To retrieve or display information from a computer system or database.
"The technician called up the patient's records on her screen."
separable
4 B2 idiomatic neutral
To evoke or bring a memory, feeling, or image to mind.
"That old song calls up memories of my childhood summers."
separable
Usage tip
The telephone sense is common in American English; British English often prefers 'ring up'. The military sense ('called up for service') is well established in British and Commonwealth English. The computing sense ('call up a file') is used broadly.
Words that pair with "call up"
Natural word combinations native speakers use most often.
friend reserves file record troops memories
How to conjugate "call up"
The five tense forms you'll use most often.
Base
call up
I/you/we/they
3rd person
calls up
he/she/it
Past simple
called up
yesterday
Past participle
called up
have + pp
-ing form
calling up
continuous
Hear "call up" in the wild
Listen to native speakers using "call up" in real YouTube videos — click a clip to watch it on Looplines.
Keep exploring
Jump to every phrasal verb built on the same verb, particle, or level.