bob up

verb — 2 senses

bob up

verb

1

To rise to the surface; to ascend to the surface and remain floating there.

He bobbed up and flailed toward the near bank. The weight of his boots and soaked uniform kept pulling him under.2011, Curt Iles, A Spent Bullet: Louisiana 1941, page 125:

2

Broadly, Figuratively To appear or arrive unexpectedly.

That's when he bobbed up again and ruined everything.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.