rake up
rake up verb: to bring up or uncover (something), as embarrassing information, past misdeeds, etc.
Verb
rake up (third-person singular simple present rakes up, present participle raking up, simple past and past participle raked up)
- To bring up or uncover (something), as embarrassing information, past misdeeds, etc.
- To cover up, to hide (like covering live embers by raking ashes over them).
- As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose...1606, Ben Jonson, Volpone, Dedication, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume III pages 163–164
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rake.
Forms of rake up
| third-person singular present | rakes up |
|---|---|
| present participle | raking up |
| past participle | raked up |
| past | raked up |
Questions about rake up
- What does rake up mean?
- Rake up means to bring up or uncover (something), as embarrassing information, past misdeeds, etc.
- What part of speech is rake up?
- Rake up is a verb.
- What is the past tense of rake up?
- The past tense of rake up is raked up.
Words near rake up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rake 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rake up.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rake up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rake_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
