sit up and take notice
Appearance
English
[edit]Verb
[edit]sit up and take notice (third-person singular simple present sits up and takes notice, present participle sitting up and taking notice, simple past sat up and took notice, past participle sat up and taken notice)
- To start to pay attention suddenly.
- 1949 November and December, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 365:
- But when we streaked through Doncaster at all but a mile-a-minute, with a miraculously clear road, in no more than 37 min. 18 sec. from the York start, I began to sit up and take notice.
Synonyms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “sit up and take notice”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
- “sit up and take notice” (US) / “sit up and take notice” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
- “sit up and take notice”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.