GROW UP

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become an adult

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "grow up" is one way to...):

grow; maturate; mature (develop and reach maturity; undergo maturation)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "grow up"):

come of age (reach a certain age that marks a transition to maturity)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue grow up

Credits

Context examples:

And so the little girl really did grow up; her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snowdrop.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I acknowledged no natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"So she is. Dear heart, how fast you do grow up," returned her mother with a sigh and a smile.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A child born with Mercury retrograde tends to grow up to be more reflective and philosophical than others, so it can be an asset.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

The very idea of her having been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and neglect, would be enough to make either of the dear, sweet-tempered boys in love with her.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her—and before her niece, too—and before others, many of whom (certainly some,) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.