pipe up
English
[edit]Verb
[edit]pipe up (third-person singular simple present pipes up, present participle piping up, simple past and past participle piped up)
- (intransitive) To speak up, especially in a robust, assertive manner; to say something loudly and suddenly.
- 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
- "You seem to have a lot to say," remarked Silver, spitting far into the air. "Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to."
- 1994, Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance:
- Once I asked a seventeen-year-old singer something that wasn't on the list, which caused her manager to pipe up: "That wasn't what we agreed on. She doesn't have to answer that."
- 2008 October, Davy Rothbart, “How I caught up with dad”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 112:
- As we rolled into our fourth week, I found myself piping up with some of my own stories.
- (intransitive) To begin singing or playing musical notes on a pipe or similar wind instrument.
- 1871, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 12, in Little Men: […], Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
- [T]he frogs in a neighboring marsh began to pipe up for the evening concert.
- 1907, Mark Twain, chapter 16, in Chapters from My Autobiography:
- But presently the gray dawn stole over the world, the birds piped up, then the sun rose and poured light and comfort all around.
- (intransitive, of wind, etc.) To begin to blow more vigorously.
- 1911, Jack London, “Make Westing”, in When God Laughs and Other Stories:
- Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes afterward a new gale was piping up.
- (transitive, rare) To call, awaken, or summon, as with a musical instrument.
- [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
- Yet beyond turning my blood cold for a moment, it gave me little trouble, for evil tales have hung about the church; and though I did not set much store by the old yarns of Blackbeard piping up his crew, yet I thought strange things might well go on among the graves at night. And so I never budged, nor stirred hand or foot to save a fellow-creature in his agony.