What does "call-up" mean?

An order to report for military service.

What is a synonym for "call-up"?

Common synonyms include: assembly, banzai, battle cry, bugle call, call, canvass.

Call-up

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
An order to report for military service.
"Fly-half Aaron Cruden hyper-extended his knee horribly in contact and was carried off the pitch, forcing Graham Henry to bring on Donald - a man who was fishing for whitebait a fortnight ago before injuries to Dan Carter and Colin Slade triggered his emergency call-up."

Synonyms

All synonyms

assembly banzai battle cry bugle call call canvass

Example

More examples

"Fly-half Aaron Cruden hyper-extended his knee horribly in contact and was carried off the pitch, forcing Graham Henry to bring on Donald - a man who was fishing for whitebait a fortnight ago before injuries to Dan Carter and Colin Slade triggered his emergency call-up."

Etymology

Deverbal from call up.

Related phrases

September call-up

More for "call-up"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.