conjure up
make an image, idea, or memory appear in your mind
What does "conjure sth up" mean?
Examples
- The smell of pine trees conjured up memories of childhood holidays in the mountains.
- Her writing conjures up a lost world of Victorian elegance and quiet desperation.
- The documentary conjured up such powerful images of the war that many viewers were moved to tears.
How to use it
The most common pattern: a sensory or abstract stimulus evokes a vivid mental image or feeling, with the phrasal verb kept together.
The opening bars of that old waltz conjure up memories of my grandmother's sitting room.
Separation is possible with short noun objects, though it is less common than the unseparated form.
The photograph conjured images up so powerful that she had to look away.
When the object is a pronoun, it must go between 'conjure' and 'up' — this separation is obligatory.
The fragrance was instantly familiar; it conjured them up — those long summer afternoons by the river.
The passive is natural and frequent, especially in literary criticism where the focus falls on what is evoked rather than on what evokes it.
A sense of quiet melancholy is conjured up by the muted colours of his later paintings.
Infinitive constructions are common when describing the capacity of something — a writer, a landscape, a work of art — to produce vivid evocations.
Few novelists have the power to conjure up a vanished era as convincingly as she does.
Common Collocations
Common Mistakes
Because 'conjure up' is primarily literary and semi-formal, using it in everyday spoken contexts sounds stilted or over-formal. In casual speech, 'remind me of' or 'make me think of' are more natural choices.
'Summon up' typically collocates with internal resources such as courage, strength, or willpower, while 'conjure up' focuses on the creation of vivid mental images, memories, or associations. Using 'conjure up' where inner resolve is meant sounds unnatural.
Separation works well only with short noun objects. Placing a long noun phrase between 'conjure' and 'up' sounds clumsy and unnatural.
Usage
This phrasal verb is most at home in written English — essays, reviews, and descriptive prose. It implies that something (a smell, a piece of music, a description) creates a very vivid image or feeling in the mind, almost magically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can 'conjure up' be used in the continuous form, like 'is conjuring up'?
It's best avoided in most contexts. The continuous form sounds awkward with this sense because 'conjuring up' an image or memory is typically experienced as an instantaneous or habitual effect rather than an ongoing action. You might occasionally encounter it in a creative-process context ('she spent months conjuring up the world of the novel'), but even then it can feel stilted.
Does 'conjure up' always mean creating a mental image? I've seen it used differently.
No — 'conjure up' has another common sense meaning to produce or improvise something tangible, as in 'he conjured up a three-course meal from whatever was in the fridge.' The two senses are usually easy to tell apart from context: if the object is an image, memory, feeling, or association, the evocative sense is in play; if the object is something physical or concrete, it's the 'produce as if by magic' sense.
What kinds of things are typically subjects with this phrasal verb?
The most natural subjects are sensory or abstract stimuli — smells, music, sounds, descriptions, photographs, landscapes, or works of art. These are things that trigger a vivid mental response almost involuntarily. When a human subject appears, it often tips toward the 'produce by magic' sense, so it's worth choosing your subject carefully to keep the evocative meaning clear.
Is 'conjure up' mainly used in writing, or is it also common in speech?
It's predominantly a written-language expression — most at home in literary criticism, book and film reviews, descriptive essays, and journalism. It does appear in educated spoken discourse, particularly in discussions about art, literature, or personal memory, but it would sound out of place in casual everyday conversation.
What objects collocate most naturally with 'conjure up'?
The most frequent objects are nouns related to mental or emotional experience: images, memories, visions, feelings, a sense of, nostalgia, associations, an atmosphere, and the past. You can also conjure up a scene, a world, or an idea. Objects that refer to something tangible being produced belong to the other sense of the phrasal verb rather than this one.
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