ring upverb

• 1

  To telephone; to call someone on the telephone.

  • Malone at once rang up Lord Roxton, and soon heard the familiar voice.
  • "I was just going ashore to ring you up."
• 2

  To enter (a payment) into a cash register, or till in a shop, or record a credit- or debit-card payment.

  • Just ring up these items first. You can ring up those separately.
  • He took out his wallet and gave her a pound note and a ten-shilling note. She rang up the sum on the till, snapped the notes into their little clip, shut the drawer.
• 3

  To record the payment of.

  • I'll take these. You can ring me up.
  • The cashier took a long time to ring him up.
• 4

  To make an adverse official decision concerning (a person).

  • Munson appeared to have taken Billy's exhortation on aggressiveness to heart. Umpire Jim McKean rung him up on strikes at one point in the game, so Thurman bumped him in anger.
  • Tommy Connolly, perhaps recalling Jones's earlier argumentativeness, rung him up — too close to take.
• 5

  To rouse by the ringing of a bell.

• 6

  ball-gamesbaseballgamesTo strikeout a batter and thereby send him or her back to the dugout.