to haul up
- phrasal verb
- /hɔl ʌp/
- UK
- An LAPD squad car hauls up onto the curb.
Examples
-
After driving for hours, the bus finally hauled up at the rest area.
-
The truck will haul up alongside the road to let passengers off.
-
Mona and I sweated, sighed, and hauled the bags up the back stairs into the kitchen to find my mother in a bad mood.
Fiction book (1995) -
Sweating Egyptian laborers were hauling immense stones up an incline.
Fiction book (1997) -
From the hall, she heard a series of thumps—the twins' suitcase, no doubt, being hauled up the stairs.
Fiction book (1995) -
Hardly slowing his gait, he leaned over to seize Lucian by the jacket, hauled him up in one powerful motion, and set him in front of himself.
Fiction book (1995) -
The taxi hauled up in front of the hotel just as it started to rain.
Synonyms
To move a vehicle to the side of the road and stop
To stop or slow down a vehicle at a place
Arrive in a vehicle in a way that people notice
To stop a vehicle at a place
Drive a car to the side of the road and stop
Antonyms
How Fast
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is built from 'haul' (to move or bring) plus the particle 'up' indicating motion toward a point or a completed action, so a learner can infer that something is moved to a location. However, the specific sense 'bring a vehicle to a stop' is an extended, phrasal-verb reading (analogous to 'pull up') that is not fully predictable from the literal definitions and may require prior exposure.
Etymology
Haul up comes from the image of pulling: haul means 'to pull' and up means 'to a place'. Imagine you pull a heavy cart or car to the side of the road — you have hauled it up — so today it means 'to stop a vehicle at a place'.