to think up
48
3.2
- phrasal verb
- /θɪŋk ʌp/
:
idear
- When Cynthia turned up the following day, Vachis had thought up a solution to the problem.
- think up ideas
- think up ways
- think up new ideas
They're always thinking up new ways to try and kill you.
- They're always thinking up new ways to try and kill you.
- And it was something that my wife and I thought up.
- A franchise comes birthed from a person not because a company hired them to think up a new franchise.
- You can call it whatever you want, if you can think up a question, you can ask it and I promise you Matthew AI will have an answer for you.
- And it's it's the name for the experience of thinking up the perfect retort for something only after you've left the party and are walking downstairs.
- They think up action sequences and then they test them in Thousand Oaks movie theaters in the afternoon of a weekday.
- He just doesn't explain how you could do it given that he is chosen not to use the tool that his fellow Austrian economist thought up for the purpose.
- The very first disposable pads were thought up by nurses in France who needed something to stop excessive bleeding, especially on the battlefield.
- And might it be more severe than we've thought up to now?
- I was there was all these little things that I thought these these things I thought up were the things making me feel this way.
- And he was trying to do his best to be a part of whatever solution to the world that he that that he thought up.
- And I haven't necessarily been, you know, thinking up people that I want on my podcast that has been a joint conversation.
- We're never done trying to think up better ways that we can do things better medicines to save people's lives.
- I I got all the way to my middle class thinking up headlines job without any contact with stand up comedy whatsoever.
Examples
-
When she sits and thinks up ways to keep us safe from the outside world.
Fiction book (1998) -
We're never done trying to think up better ways that we can do things better medicines to save people's lives.
-
Uh... help think up a story.
-
Let me think up the ideas.
-
At first, it would be hard to think up things to say.
Fiction book (1990) -
Now start thinking up some prayers.
-
So this process of thinking up good questions and trying to answer them, that's what mathematical research is about.
-
So we ate spaghetti, drank wine, and got serious again, thinking up championship names.
Fiction book (1990) -
He thought up our mascot, Terry the Tuna.
-
The team needs to think up a creative solution for the marketing campaign.
Synonyms
∞
2.7
To think of an idea or plan
972
3.2
Invent a story or excuse that is not true
950
2.8
To find a solution or plan by thinking carefully
866
2.1
Invent a plan or idea in your mind
181
3.2
To make up a story or excuse that is not true
74
5.2
To form an idea or plan in your mind
50
3.9
To develop an idea, plan, or design with effort
46
6.0
Make up a story or excuse to trick people
38
3.9
To think of a new or unusual idea
37
5.6
Invent a story or excuse to trick people
35
5.2
To make a plan in secret, often to surprise someone
13
7.3
To invent a clever plan or excuse
12
6.9
To form an idea in your mind about something
1
4.4
To think of a clever or secret plan to do something
To form an idea or picture in your mind
To find a plan or solution by thinking carefully
Antonyms
How Inventive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to invent or create by thinking' is partly derivable from 'think' together with the particle 'up', which often signals completion, emergence, or generation, so a learner who knows both words can often infer a related meaning. However, the leap from literal thinking + 'up' to the more specific notion of inventing or producing an idea is a metaphorical extension rather than strictly compositional, so the relation is only partially predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The phrase think up comes from the image of pulling an idea up out of your head, because think means using your mind and up means bringing something upward. So think up means 'to invent' or 'create' a plan or idea.