trump up


verb
  1. (tr, adverb) to concoct or invent (a charge, accusation, etc) so as to deceive or implicate someone

Words Nearby trump up

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

How to use trump up in a sentence

  • Obsequious menials might even set the dogs at him, or trump up a charge against him and put him in jail.

    The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant | Alexander Johnstone Wilson
  • I can trump up some excuse to mother about not staying all night with you, as I intended.

    The Night Riders | Henry C. Wood
  • If we hang around here for another day they'll trump up another fake charge an' clean us out!

    Square Deal Sanderson | Charles Alden Seltzer
  • If you haven't, you'd better trump up one together, and I'll send you my attorney to hear it.

    The Younger Set | Robert W. Chambers
  • But a lawyer with no cases on hand has to trump up something to advertise himself.

    Polly's Southern Cruise | Lillian Elizabeth Roy

Other Idioms and Phrases with trump up

trump up

Concoct fraudulently, fabricate, as in They trumped up a charge of conspiracy, or She had trumped up another excuse for not doing the work. This expression, first recorded in 1695, uses trump in the sense of “devise fraudulently,” a usage otherwise obsolete.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.