work up

work up (third-person singular simple present works up, present participle working up, simple past and past participle worked up)

1. To raise; to excite; to stir up.

   He worked up the public's passions to rage.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

     In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the pitch of eagerness.

2. To develop.

   I shall have worked up an appetite with all this heavy work.

3. (transitive, medicine) To give (a patient) a general medical examination to assess health and fitness.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To use up (material, etc.).
5. (obsolete, nautical) To set at an irksome or needless task.