What Does Sign Up Mean?
Sign up means to add your name to a list so you can join something, such as a class, a club or a service.
Mia signed up for the chess club.
You can sign up online for language classes.
You can also sign someone else up. It means to get them to join.
🗣️ Natural Examples
Leo wants to sign up for swimming lessons.
I signed up for the school trip yesterday.
Dad signed me up for the drawing club.
Please sign up by Friday, or the places will be gone.
The coach has signed up three new players for the team.
✂️ Can You Separate It?
Yes, when you sign someone up. The person can sit in the middle.
With a noun or a name, both places are fine.
✅ Sign up Ravi for the club.
✅ Sign Ravi up for the club.
With a pronoun, it goes in the middle.
✅ Sign me up!
✅ Sign them up.
❌ Sign up me.
When you sign up yourself, there is no object: I signed up. Add for and the thing you are joining: I signed up for chess.
🛠️ How to Use It
- Past tense: signed up. Past participle: signed up.
- The thing you join comes after for: sign up for a class, a club, a trip, a team.
- Someone else signs you: sign somebody up. Mum signed me up for dance.
- Online: it can be a click, not a signature. Sign up for our newsletter.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
The thing you join needs for.
❌ I signed up the chess club.
✅ I signed up for the chess club.
A pronoun belongs in the middle.
❌ Please sign up me.
✅ Please sign me up.
Zoe: I signed up for a cooking class.
Sam: What will you cook?
Zoe: Dinner for you. I already signed you up.
💡 The OddLingo Trick
Think of the list. When you sign up, you add your name to it, and you are in.
Quick test: if you add a for, it is you who joins: sign up for a club. If you put a pronoun in the middle, somebody else is joining: sign her up.
👯 Similar Expressions
- Log In and Log On: come back to something you have already joined.
- Check In: arrive and register.
- Hand In, Hand Out, Hand Over: other phrasal verbs for forms and papers.
- join: a plain word for the same idea.