titivate
1 Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
-
to smarten up (oneself or another), as by making up, doing the hair, etc
-
(tr) to smarten up (a thing)
to titivate a restaurant
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of titivate1
1795–1805; earlier tidivate ( tidy + (ele)vate; i.e., tidy up)
Origin of titivate2
First recorded in 1910–15; by erroneous association
Explanation
Titivate means to spiff up or tidy up. When you’re getting dressed for the prom, you might fuss with your hair and your dress and generally titivate yourself until you’re ready to step out and make your grand entry. You can titivate your makeup or your room or you can titivate yourself — all of it in the pursuit of making something more attractive and neat. Titivate can also mean to make small alterations to something. You might titivate your new coat by adding cute buttons and ribbons to it. Titivate, which is not a very commonly used word, may have originated from the word tidy, formed on the pattern of words like cultivate.
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:
Sharp, salty and/or crunchy are the aims here, to titivate and offset the creamy avo.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 16, 2019
Polari Nellyarda, zhoosh the riah, titivate, schlumph your Vera down, and palare that omee for the bevvies because I’ve nanti dinarli.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 8, 2016
One in three people in the UK – 20m – are gardeners and they spend £5bn a year at 30,000 garden-related businesses to titivate their flower beds, window boxes, allotments and lawns.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2013
They titivate their short hair: "nothing fantastic, no hint of Merseybeat".
From The Guardian ● Dec. 17, 2012
I trust I shall be in time to titivate myself.
From The White Gauntlet by Mayne Reid
"The sort of things that, dare I say, have been titivated up and had quite a bit of value added to them."
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2022
There is something anxious, and very intriguing, in the degree of experimentation in this memoir, in its elaborately titivated sentences, its thicket of citations.
From New York Times ● Oct. 29, 2019
"If there were new insights, the proper course would be for the relevant evidence to be submitted to the police, not titivated and presented to the public under the guise of entertainment."
From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2013
One of the formats in the BBC's titivated arts schedule is What Do Artists Do All Day?; the first subject is Jack Vettriano.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 15, 2013
He was reluctantly taking his turn on the family egg while Mrs. Daisy stretched and titivated herself after her domestic labours.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, March 19, 1919 by Various
He is not above making occasional impromptu speeches or working for a laugh as he did last week with the titivating run in Arensky's Scherzo.
From Time Magazine Archive
To assert that she only thought of spending did not satisfy his spleen; he must add "titivating herself."
From The Plain Man and His Wife by Arnold Bennett
It lay open, and anybody could use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E. was titivating in the crowd before the glass.
From Phemie Frost's Experiences by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
"What about all this stuff?" she asks, while titivating herself; "we'd better not leave it about, it looks so untidy."
From Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
I haven't gone in for titivating my complexion yet.
From Loyal to the School by Angela Brazil
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.
