Word.ws English Dictionary

pull up stakes

pull up stakes verb: to prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.
    • They just pulled up stakes and left.
    • From the start of their strange and embattled marriage, they established a pattern of suddenly pulling up stakes with little notice to family members or neighbors.2006 November 30, Paul Solotaroff, “Can Nate Ybanez Ever Be FORGIVEN?”, in Rolling Stone, pages 84–128

Forms of pull up stakes

third-person singular presentpulls up stakes
present participlepulling up stakes
past participlepulled up stakes
pastpulled up stakes

Questions about pull up stakes

What does pull up stakes mean?
Pull up stakes means to prepare to move one's (usually temporary) habitation, especially rapidly.
What part of speech is pull up stakes?
Pull up stakes is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull up stakes?
The past tense of pull up stakes is pulled up stakes.

Words near pull up stakes in the dictionary

  1. pull up a floor
  2. pull up a pew
  3. pull up on
  4. pull up one's socks
  5. pull up short
  6. pull up stakes
  7. pull up stumps
  8. pull up the drawbridge
  9. pull up the ladder
  10. pull up your pants
  11. pull'd

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull up stakes (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-pull up stakes.ogg.

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