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
Gravely and calmly he draws brushes and so on from a receptacle under the box-seat, and commences to titivate himself.
From Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand by Hay, William Delisle
"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
My dear Knowles, Here is the debonnaire animal finally titivated, and I quite agree, much improved, though I mourn the loss of some of the spice.
From Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2 by Huxley, Thomas Henry
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
And finally, in his reflections as an ill-used man tied for life to a woman who knows not tact, Mr. Omicron asserted further that Mrs. Omicron only thought of spending and titivating herself.
From The Plain Man and His Wife by Bennett, Arnold
She stopped titivating herself at the mirror, and turning round groaned in a voice of horror: “Wou je eten?”
From The Further Adventures of O'Neill in Holland by Brown, J. Irwin
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 Bennett, Arnold
The door was opened, and a dozen small beings came in, and began to search for an earthen pitcher with water; there they remained for some hours, washing and titivating themselves.
From Welsh Folk-Lore a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales by Owen, Elias
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.
