prepositions - "Conjure" vs "conjure up"

What's the difference between the two? Example:

I conjured a random number.

I conjured up a random number.

Answer

By itself, conjure means to cause something to appear by magic (literally), especially by a magic incantation. For example, "Faustus conjured a demon."

Conjure up can mean the same thing, but more often suggests that you're using conjure metaphorically to describe producing something in a more prosaic way, like inventing or improvising or randomly choosing something. It also suggests producing it quickly and unmethodically.

This works by analogy with many other phrasal verbs where up is added to some weightier verb to "lighten" its meaning and/or suggest producing something immediately or carelessly, like these:

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  whip / whip up (whipping cream is a laborious activity; "whipping something up" suggests making something, like something to eat, quickly using whatever ingredients happen to be available, with little effort)

  
  


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  make / make up (to make something is to produce it, usually suggesting skill or deliberation; to "make something up" is to invent or improvise something purely from imagination, suggesting very little deliberation and/or no basis in fact)

  
  


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  turn / turn up ("whatever turns up" means whatever arrives, without much planning or control)

  
  


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  show / show up (to "show" something is to demonstrate it, usually to an attentive audience; to "show up" is merely to appear, as in "Let's see who shows up at school today")

  
  
  


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  meet / meet up (both mean the same thing, but the latter is less formal, suggesting meeting unexpectedly or meeting briefly)

  
  

I take the up in these phrasal verbs to suggest lightly flicking one's hand upward, tossing things into the air in front of you, letting them assemble into whatever they happen to make—or else something appearing just now, coming "up" into your field of vision.

(Of course up builds phrasal verbs in other ways, too.)