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Glite Dictionary
📝 To write formally 🚕 To stop a vehicle 🪖 To arrange in order 🧍 To stand tall
to draw up

to draw up

2 4.1
To arrange people into a line or formation
  • phrasal verb
  • /drɔː ʌp/
  • Jargon
translation icon : formar
  • The Persian ships were drawn up on the beach at Marathon, soldiers in their myriads massed on the shore.

Examples

  • The commander ordered the troops to draw up in a line before the inspection.

  • At the 1986 Annual Conference, a subcommittee drew up a petition for the formation of a section.

    Academic text (2014)

  • There they drew up plans for the surrender of Japan.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • We met the Zoner army there, drawn up in battle line.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I drew up the spearmen in a formation much like the Macedonian phalanx.

    Quo Vadis (1951)

  • As the sun began to set, the soldiers were drawn up in formation for the evening ceremony.

  • In preparation for the parade, the marchers had to draw up according to their assigned positions.

Synonyms

to arrange
vsto draw up
162 1.7

To put things or information in a clear, neat order

focuses on placing people or units into precise tactical formations
to line up
vsto draw up
115 2.6

Put people or things in a straight row

is for any formation of people or things, not only straight rows

Antonyms

to scatter
110 2.7

To make people or animals move quickly in different directions

How Ordered

to line up
115 2.6
to draw up
  • Jargon
2 4.1
to deploy
371 5.6
to gather
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

draw up infinitive
drawing up present participle
draws up third person singular
drew up past
drawn up past participle

Morphology

draw + up

The meaning 'to straighten oneself to an erect posture' follows directly from combining 'draw' in the bodily sense 'to pull' with the directional particle 'up' (pull upwards), so a B1 learner who knows those constituent senses can infer the MWE. If a learner only knows the given sense of 'draw' as 'draft/compose', the connection is less clear, but the physical 'pull up' reading is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so overall the expression is compositional.

Etymology

Draw up (for people in formation) comes from the image of pulling people together into a straight line, as if someone drew them up into place. So draw up means 'to arrange' people or things in order.