pull up

Verb

pull up (third-person singular simple present pulls up, present participle pulling up, simple past and past participle pulled up)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To move or bring (something) to the present location in its upright position.
   • Pull up a chair and sit down.
   • Pull up a bench and have a seat.
2. (idiomatic, transitive) To fetch for display on a screen.
   • Pull up that website for me; it sounds quite interesting.
3. (especially, idiomatic) To arrive at a halt; to approach and stop at a particular point.
   • Pull up to that curb slowly; you don't want to scratch that other car.
   • We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine.[…]As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
   1. (broadly, especially, idiomatic, slang) To travel somewhere, especially to meet someone else; to come to.
      • I'm pulling up to the club tonight, want to join?
      • You can always pull up to your favorite national chain such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts who is offering a free cup with any purchase on Wednesday or any fast food restaurant.2021 September 21, Tina Adkins, “September 29 is National Coffee Day! Here's some local places for the best coffee in town!”, in New Bern Sun Journal, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2022
4. (idiomatic) To cause (a horse) to stop when riding.
5. (idiomatic) To cause (a person or vehicle) to stop.
   • "Well, sir, we were always pulled up on Thursday; practically always, you may say. It got to be quite a saying among those who used the train regular; they used to look out for it. […] I suppose it wasn't thought worth while to alter us in the time-table, so we most always had to wait outside Three...1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
   • "People pull me up in the street to ask if I have room for their son, daughter, sister or cousin to come down to go to school[.]"2021 February, The Road Ahead, Brisbane, page 16, column 3
6. (idiomatic, rare) To improve; to get better; to lift one's game.
   • A local doctor had bought one canvas and but for that lucky chance he would have been out of pocket. Now he was muttering grumpily at Edmund, "Have to get something better this trip, Edmund. Got to pull up somehow or buyers will be turnin' us down. Sales been gettin' worse and worse these last...1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 17
7. (ambitransitive, idiomatic) To raise (the nose of an aircraft)
   • Terrain, terrain! Pull up! Pull up!
   • It was, of course, imperative to react rapidly, to pull up the plane in a split second after bomb dropping, flying across the tank so as to avoid being hit by the explosion of our own bomb.1978 November, Paul-Werner Hozzel, "Conversations with a Stuka Pilot" Conference, page 118
8. (idiomatic, ballet) To adopt a posture with straight back and shoulders down, but ribcage and sternum lifted.
9. (idiomatic, transitive) To intentionally take a racehorse out of a race, usually as a result of the horse's tiredness or concerns of potential injury (in reference to the act of pulling up the reins).
10. (Australia, idiomatic) To fare after a party, an illness, or a strenuous effort; to attempt to recover.
    • How'd you pull up this morning?
11. (UK, idiomatic) To admonish or criticize someone for their actions.
    • At 4pm, the phone went. It was The Sun: 'We hear your daughter's been expelled for cheating at her school exams...' She'd made a remark to a friend at the end of the German exam and had been pulled up for talking. As they left the exam room, she muttered that the teacher was a 'twat'. He heard and...1992 June 24, Edwina Currie, Diary
    • My coursework began to suffer and my parents pulled me up on it and said we are not paying for you to get off your head every night.2014, April De Angelis, Wild East
12. (idiomatic) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pull, up.
    • In this May 20, 2006, Barbaro is steadied[sic, "by" is missing] a track worker as jockey Edgar Prado looks on after he pulled up the horse with a fractured right rear leg during the 131st running of the Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.2016 May 19, Paul Vigna, “Barbaro's ill-fated run 10 years ago in the Preakness: A look back”, in PennLive
    1. (ambitransitive, idiomatic) To lift (something or oneself) upwards or vertically.
       • I pull up the lever when I want to make my car go into first gear.
       • Pull up to climb the rope.
    2. (idiomatic) To pull forward.
       • Pull the car up a little so you don't block his driveway.
       • Pull up a little so you don't block his driveway.