Wiktionary
vb. 1 (&lit dredge up English) 2 (context figuratively English) To find by diligent search, especially from unsavory sources.
WordNet
v. mention something unpleasant from the past; "Drag up old stories" [syn: drag up]
Usage examples of "dredge up".
She asked if I would be there, and I told her, probably not, that it was still difficult for me to be seen at gatherings of the nobility where someone might dredge up an old memory of me.
He was right, she'd been going to run, though not for whatever reasons his self-conceit would probably dredge up but the choice was hers, not his.
But every time the temptation to call her began undermining his common sense, his memory would dredge up the picture of her lying on the yard with her blood soaking her clothing, and he knew he couldn't live if his very presence put her in that sort of danger again.
Holden tried to dredge up what he could from his own, pre-Kowalski memory banks.
His mind raced to dredge up something from his limited Russian vocabulary.
Pitt tried every trick he could dredge up from his memory on desert survival, including breathing through his nose to prevent water loss and talking very little, and only then when they took a rest.
He may have brushed a live EM conduit, she thought, trying to dredge up old equipment-maintenance lessons from memory.
He even amazed himself by how much he could dredge up under extreme pressure, words from a lullaby he remembered his grandmother singing, and the names of different birds.
We dredge up the facts, evaluate the source, and present them to you for consideration, and you decide what happens after that.