lead up

1. 1.

   set in motion, start an event or prepare the way for

   “Hitler's attack on Poland led up to World War II”

   Synonymsinitiate

   Broaderoriginate

Questions about lead up

What does lead up mean?

lead up means "set in motion, start an event or prepare the way for".

What is another word for lead up?

Close synonyms include initiate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is lead up a common word?

lead up is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.