turn up — be found unexpectedly
phrasal verbC1IELTS 7+neutraloccasional
To appear or be discovered, especially after being lost or missing, often by chance and unexpectedly.
Say it like a native
Textbook The missing documents eventually resurfaced in the archive.
Native The missing papers finally turned up.
'Turn up' is the natural verb for something lost reappearing; 'resurfaced' is formal.
Pattern: subject (thing/person) + turn up
In use
- Don’t worry about your passport—it’ll probably turn up sooner or later.discovery
- Sometimes, important documents that go missing during a move eventually turn up in the most unlikely places.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ My keys turned up themselves.
✓ My keys turned up.
It's intransitive here — don't add 'themselves'.
Common collocations
turn up + discovery— eventually, in the drawer, missing, again
Don't confuse it
Unlike the B1 sense 'arrive unexpectedly' (which refers to a person going somewhere), this sense is about something or someone being discovered after being lost, not about arriving at a place.
Related
- turn up (arrive unexpectedly) — 'turn up' also has the more basic meaning 'arrive unexpectedly'; this is the advanced sense.