dress-up
Americanadjective
noun
verb
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to attire (oneself or another) in one's best clothes
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to put fancy dress, disguise, etc, on (oneself or another), as in children's games
let's dress up as ghosts!
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(tr) to improve the appearance or impression of
it's no good trying to dress up the facts
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Wear formal or elaborate clothes, as in I love to dress up for a party . [Late 1600s] For the antonym, see dress down , def. 2.
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Put on a costume of some kind, as in The children love dressing up as witches and goblins . [Late 1800s]
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Adorn or disguise something in order to make it more interesting or appealing. For example, She has a way of dressing up her account with fanciful details . [Late 1600s]
Etymology
Origin of dress-up
First recorded in 1665–75; noun, adj. use of verb phrase dress up
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I imagine the A.I. bot like a child playing dress-up, donning an oversized blazer and glasses for a game of “businessman.”
From Slate • Mar. 20, 2026
But the display is tiny, the neural-band bracelet control is too fiddly and the glasses themselves make me look like a kid playing dress-up with her dad’s ’70s eyewear.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025
The video closed out Beyonce's costume dress-up with the caption "Happy Beylloween."
From Salon • Nov. 5, 2024
Playing dress-up at her grandmother’s, where she’d deck herself to the nines in borrowed costume jewelry, she soon found out that what was encouraged by her open-minded family was derided in the outside world.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 20, 2024
Not something connected to my past, but a fanciful dress-up game that means nothing.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
