prettify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make pretty, especially in a small, petty way.
to prettify a natural beauty.
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to minimize or gloss over (something unpleasant).
to prettify his rude behavior.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of prettify
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.
See Examples For:
Instead, they take an approach that is at once more generous and more unsparing, refusing to either condemn their characters or prettify them.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 9, 2019
It is partly an aesthetic thing – they are trained to prettify the plate – and partly a crisis of faith in their own ability.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 25, 2016
It is exquisitely photographed, not in a way to prettify things but to recognize their beauty.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2014
Mark Romanek, director of the transcendent “Hurt” video, made late in Cash’s life, said he didn’t want “to prettify the whole thing.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 11, 2013
But I knowed I had to prettify the story even more.
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
In their telling, she added, “rivers were supposed to be prettified, we were supposed to generate significant quantities of clean electricity and local communities were promised it will all benefit them greatly.”
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 10, 2022
Even these startlingly grim numbers have been heavily prettified by Root, who has been papering over some tectonic faults in his team's batting.
From BBC ● Dec. 13, 2021
Oakland has long defined itself by what it’s not, which is to say the prettified and pretentious city across the bay.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2019
The banality of the movie’s sentiments is matched by the banality of its execution—its generically prettified and manicured cinematography and the earnest and tamped-down performances.
From The New Yorker ● May 23, 2016
That the prose should have been prettified and platitudinised, decorated and diluted into the verse is a possibility which we know to be not only possible but likely, from a thousand more unfortunate examples.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by Saintsbury, George
Graf’s approach is admirably less enamored with the prettifying impulses so many filmmakers rely on to capture the past, and instead centered on putting us inside it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2022
“New buildings should fit naturally into their surroundings, both architecturally and historically, without denying or prettifying the concerns of our time,” he said in his Pritzker acceptance speech.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 11, 2021
Cale is not interested in circumventing or prettifying anguish: let it come down.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 22, 2017
There are materials such as carpet squares and windowpanes for prettifying the work.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 14, 2014
Some of those words might be freed people prettifying things, but some of it was real!
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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.
