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Wiktionary
start up

vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To rise suddenly. 2 (context transitive intransitive English) To begin to operate. 3 (context intransitive colloquial English) To begin.

WordNet
start up
  1. v. get going or set in motion; "We simply could not start the engine"; "start up the computer" [syn: start] [ant: stop]

  2. get off the ground; "Who started this company?"; "We embarked on an exciting enterprise"; "I start my day with a good breakfast"; "We began the new semester"; "The afternoon session begins at 4 PM"; "The blood shed started when the partisans launched a surprise attack" [syn: start, embark on, commence]

Usage examples of "start up".

But she knew no man would ever satisfy her completely, and anyway he showed no signs of wanting to start up anything exclusive.

Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled?

For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power.

He believed for an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking.

Behind her, she heard the truck come to a brief halt and then start up again, vanishing behind the background hum of closing gateway doors.

They'll be within javelin range before much longer, and the field artillery will start up even sooner.

On such occasions he would start up, quaff a cup of wine as if to raise his spirits, and then mingle in the conversation by some observation made abruptly or at random.

Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers?