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Glite Dictionary
📞 To phone 🪖 To order to serve 💻 To access information 💭 To remember 🗣️ To bring for discussion 🪖 An order to serve
call up

call up

8 6.4
An official order telling someone to report for military service
  • noun
  • /kɔl ʌp/
  • Formal
translation icon : convocatoria
  • Well, I got my call-up papers.
  • a call-up for duty
  • a military call-up
  • a call-up order

Thing is, America learned a lot from the great call up.

Examples

  • After receiving my call-up papers, I prepared for basic training with the military.

  • Orders were given to okay 30,000 reserve call-ups.

    Blog text (9)

  • And it wasn't long before he received his England call-up.

    David Beckham: Infamous (2022)

  • It had been only the second day of the war when he got his call-up.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the call-up of 30,000 army reservists, according to BBC News.

    Blog text (11)

  • The government's announcement included details about the call-up of thousands of reservists next month.

  • He was nervous after he got his call-up notice to report for service in the army.

Synonyms

marching orders
vscall up
11 4.9

Instructions telling people to start a task or leave a place

is specifically an order to report for military service rather than any task
levy
vscall up
  • Archaic
9 8.0

An official order that makes people join the army

orders specific people to report personally for military service
conscription
vscall up
  • Formal
7 8.2

A system that by law makes people serve in the military

is a single official order telling a person to report for service

How Compulsory

draft
  • US
216 6.1
call up
  • Formal
8 6.4
recall
  • Formal
9 5.1
to mobilize
34 6.1
to request
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

call up singular
call ups plural

Morphology

call + up

The sense 'to make available / retrieve' can be inferred from 'call' in the sense of 'summon' or 'invoke' combined with the particle 'up' meaning 'bring into view' or 'into an active state', so a learner who knows those constituent senses could plausibly guess the meaning. However, the particle meaning is variable across phrasal verbs and the specific uses (recalling a memory, displaying a file, mobilizing resources) are somewhat lexicalized and context-dependent, so the relation is not fully predictable without prior exposure.

Etymology

Call up (noun) is the actual order that 'calls' a person 'up' to serve — a notice telling someone to report for military duty, so a 'call up' is the official summons to join service.