phrasal verb

• 1drag something up, drag up somethingDeliberately mention an unwelcome or unpleasant fact.

  More example sentences

  • ‘pieces of evidence about his early life were dragged up’
  • ‘Mobile phone records were dragged up as part of an investigation into insider trading, which embroiled one of the richest men in the City, before concluding there was no case to answer.’
  • ‘I can't believe they are dragging this story up again!’
  • ‘The current bad guys are dragging it up again to justify contemporary viciousness.’
  • ‘She said: ‘Not a day goes by when I don't think about both of them and you can't imagine what it's like to drag it up again and have to ask people if things like that have happened.’’
  • ‘They don't want to drag it up again and create bad memories for her family.’
  • ‘Which rather begs the question: why drag it up and prolong it through litigation in the first place?’
  • ‘I felt weak for doing so, and as I cried I thought about the blast, dragging the memory up and thinking about it repeatedly until I remembered the smell.’
  • ‘We've spent the last year trying to stay out of the papers, and it has died down, but as soon as I put a record out I'm gonna be back in the papers again, and old things will be dragged up.’
  • ‘Why keep dragging things up that don't matter any more?’

  Synonyms

  remind people of, revive the memory of, recollect, remember, call to mind

• 2drag someone up, drag up someoneBritish Bring up a child badly.

  More example sentences

  • ‘would you have her dragged up by a succession of au pairs?’

• 3Dress up in clothes more conventionally worn by the opposite sex.

  More example sentences

  • ‘he drags up to play a high-heeled bordello inmate’