answer up

English

Verb

answer up (third-person singular simple present answers up, present participle answering up, simple past and past participle answered up)

1. (intransitive) To come forth with a prompt answer.
   • c. 1884, Mark Twain, “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians”, in Walter Blair, editor, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians: And Other Unfinished Stories, published 2011, page 63:

     "Answer up, Tom," but Tom didn't answer up. So he said it again, and Tom didn't answer up again; and come to look, there warn't anything there but the mule—Tom was gone.

   • 1912, The Bradys and the Yellow Giant:

     Come now, if you don't answer up at once it will be too late, "for I shall run you right to the station. What happened to the man who went overboard?"

   • 2012, Sheldon Russell, Dreams to Dust: A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush:

     “Mavis?” he called out. When she didn't answer, he called again. “Mavis, goddang it, answer up.” “That you, Carl?” she called back from the dugout.

   • 2012, Kelly R. Rasmussen, Call 911!: True Stories from My Life in Emergency Dispatch, page 70:

     I overheard a voice on the fire south radio channel trying to hail us. I answer up. “This is central, go ahead unit calling.

References

• “answer up”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.