call upverb

• 1

  To retrieve from personal or computer memory.

  • I remember looking in the card catalogue of the main Public Library under "Homosexuality" and not daring to call up the books because "they" might think I was one.
  • The Emoji Movie takes place in “Textopolis,” where emojis maintain their assigned expression with no deviation, waiting to be called up for their on-screen appearance as needed.
• 2

  To summon (someone) to report for military service.

  • “I don’t know if I’ll go to war or not, I don’t know what process the guys who are being called up are going through,” he wrote. “At the moment, our army is fully coping with the offensives of Russian soldiers and equipment.”
• 3

  To select e.g. to a sports squad.

  • Dean Ashton was called up to the England squad for the first time.
• 4

  To call on the telephone.

  • You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though. I read it last summer. It’s a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn’t want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don’t know. He just isn't the kind of a guy I'd want to call up, that's all.
  • The other night, you wouldn't believe The dream I just had about you and me I called you up, but we both agree It's for the best you didn't listen