spring up

English

Verb

spring up (third-person singular simple present springs up, present participle springing up, simple past sprang up, past participle sprung up)

  1. (intransitive) To appear suddenly.
    A breeze had sprung up, pushing the ship back within range of the Spanish cannons.
  2. (intransitive, figuratively) To come rapidly into existence.
    • 1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 167:
      In 1924 the Hashemite King Hussein was driven out of the Hedjaz by Ibn Saud, and a state of war sprang up between the new kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Trans-Jordan.
    • 1960 November, H. P. White, “The evolution of train services on the Southern's Oxted line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 662:
      In the 1890s and in the early years of the present century there was considerable building development in the area around Sanderstead, Warlingham and Oxted, where large villas were springing up. East Grinstead, Tunbridge Wells and Uckfield were growing fast, as was that loosely knit "subtopia"—neither town, village nor country—which is known collectively as Crowborough.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.
    • 2026 November 5, Erin Somers, “Lab-grown meat was supposed to save the world. What happened?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      The event – the theatrical reveal, the PR spectacle – triggered a kind of gold rush. One hundred and forty companies sprang up in six continents, trying to replicate what Post had done with beef across a range of other species: chicken, pork, fish, even quail.
      (Can we archive this URL?)

Synonyms

Derived terms

  • spring up like mushrooms
  • springer-up

Translations

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