dredge up

dredge up (third-person singular simple present dredges up, present participle dredging up, simple past and past participle dredged up)

1. (figuratively) To find by diligently searching, especially from unsavory sources.

   Where did you dredge up the idea that they didn't know what hospital he was born in?

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dredge,‎ up.
   • 1970, Maurice Burton, Robert Burton, The international wildlife encyclopedia, volume 1, page 1713:

     Young, dense seed mussels are dredged up and relaid in more sheltered areas, where they will not be destroyed by storms.

   • 1997, David Malcolm Grant, Bulls, bears, and elephants: a history of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, page 91:

     The rush to dredge resulted in engineering problems, with those who had not first ascertained the depth of the wash by boring later dredging up only buckets of water.

   • 2002, Anthropologica, volume 44, number 1, page 92:

     The soil dredged up was dumped on the lagoon's shores, which also destroyed large sections of the nearby mangroves and fresh water sources that provide nutrients and oxygen to the local ecosystem