Word.ws English Dictionary

answering up

answering up is the present participle and gerund of answer up.

Meaning of answer up

Verb

answer up (third-person singular simple present answers up, present participle answering up, simple past and past participle answered up)

  1. (intransitive) To come forth with a prompt answer.
    • "Answer up, Tom," but Tom didn't answer up. So he said it again, and Tom didn't answer up again; and come to look, there warn't anything there but the mule—Tom was gone.c. 1884, Mark Twain, “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians”, in Walter Blair, editor, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians: And Other Unfinished Stories, published 2011, page 63

Questions about answering up

What is answering up the present participle and gerund of?
Answering up is the present participle and gerund of answer up.

Words near answering up in the dictionary

  1. answering someone's prayers
  2. answering the call
  3. answering the call of nature
  4. answering the helm
  5. answering to
  6. answering up
  7. answeringly
  8. answerings
  9. answerless
  10. answerlessly
  11. answerlessness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: answering up (page history and authors); answer up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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