Your English: Phrasal verbs: bring (4)

‘Manufacturers of smart phones are engaged in a mad scramble to bring out ever more sophisticated models’. In this sense, bring out means ‘to release’ or, in the case of books, magazines and newspapers, ‘to publish’. Bring out can also be used to mean ‘to highlight’, as in ‘The wine really brings out the spicy flavour of the meat’ or ‘There’s something about him that brings out the worst in me’.

If an allergic reaction to something causes marks to appear on the skin, it brings you out in a rash or spots, as in ‘She had to stop using that particular brand of face cream as it brought her out in a rash’.

If you bring someone round to your way of thinking, you persuade them to agree with you. If someone is unconscious, you may wish to try to bring them round, i.e. to make them conscious again, as in ‘They threw cold water in his face to try and bring him round’.

Apart from its main meaning of raising a child, bring up can also be used to mean to start discussing a subject that was not being discussed before, as in ‘I hate to bring this up but you still owe me fifty pounds’. A rather unpleasant meaning of bring up is to vomit, as in ‘The dog’s brought his dinner up all over the living room carpet’. Finally, if you bring something up on a computer screen, you make it appear, as in ‘I’ve got all her details here. Let me just bring them up on the screen’.