Word.ws English Dictionary

drum up

drum up verb: to generate or encourage; to campaign for.

Verb

drum up (third-person singular simple present drums up, present participle drumming up, simple past and past participle drummed up)

  1. (idiomatic) To generate or encourage; to campaign for.
    • The candidate gave speeches, shook hands, and kissed babies in an effort to drum up support before the election.
    • From 1910, to drum up custom, the Metropolitan would operate a luxury Pullman service from Verney Junction to Aldgate.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 73
  2. (UK, slang, transitive) To prepare food or drink with improvised implements, e.g. while camping; especially, to make tea in something other than a tea kettle.

Forms of drum up

third-person singular presentdrums up
present participledrumming up
past participledrummed up
pastdrummed up

Questions about drum up

What does drum up mean?
Drum up means to generate or encourage; to campaign for.
What part of speech is drum up?
Drum up is a verb.
What is the past tense of drum up?
The past tense of drum up is drummed up.

Words near drum up in the dictionary

  1. drum stick
  2. drum sticks
  3. drum talk
  4. drum tower
  5. drum towers
  6. drum up
  7. drum'n'bass
  8. drum-dried
  9. drum-head court
  10. drum-head courts
  11. drum-skin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drum 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-drum up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “drum up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drum_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.