Word.ws English Dictionary

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)

  1. (ambitransitive, figuratively) To bring up or uncover (something), as embarrassing information, past misdeeds, etc.
  2. (figuratively, obsolete, transitive) 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
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rake.

Forms of rake up

third-person singular presentrakes up
present participleraking up
past participleraked up
pastraked 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

  1. rake receiver
  2. rake receivers
  3. rake stepping
  4. rake steppings
  5. rake together
  6. rake up
  7. rake-'n'-scrape
  8. rake-and-scrape
  9. rake-hell
  10. rake-hells
  11. rake-helly

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.

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