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strike up

verb

  1. (of a band, orchestra, etc) to begin to play or sing
  2. tr to bring about; cause to begin

    to strike up a friendship

  3. tr to emboss (patterns, etc) on (metal)
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Example Sentences

If you respond, he begins to strike up a conversation through its private message function.

Just before heading out into the Hollywood night, I strike up a conversation with New Zealand actress Rena Owen.

When among Israelis, I find myself trying to strike up spontaneous singalongs of old Israeli ditties.

He would "strike up a conversation with anyone and relate to them," Henkel said.

The two immediately strike up a friendship, with the old spinster writing in her diary that Sheba “may be the one.”

On this the royal band of music would strike up its liveliest airs, and a great bell would toll its evening warning.

What really brought our party into this country, though, was a report of a rich strike up above.

But it was one thing to strike up an acquaintanceship in Liverpool, and quite another to continue that acquaintanceship elsewhere.

One went to a spinet which stood at the end of the room, and another brought in a violin and began to strike up a dancing air.

In that case he had only to strike up a few airs and it was all up with the poor Colus.

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strike throughStrike while the iron is hot