dicky up

English

Verb

dicky up (third-person singular simple present dickies up, present participle dickying up, simple past and past participle dickied up)

1. (British, Ireland, slang) To adorn, dress up, spruce up.
   • 1998, Criostoir O'Flynn, There Is an Isle: A Limerick Boyhood, Boulder, C.O.: Mercier Press; Irish American Book Company, →ISBN, page 206:

     The way they dicky up the corpse in the fancy funeral parlours today, with cosmetics and other tricks of the trade, and dressed in the best clothes, one would think they were trying to tell you what Our Lord said about the little daughter of Jairus, 'She is not dead but sleeping.'

   • 2014, Ciara Geraghty, Now That I've Found You, London: Hodder, →ISBN, page 131:

     I go to Edges. Pick up a tin of white outdoor paint. Last one in the shop. 'First Holy Communions,' the man says, by way of explanation. 'People dickying up their properties.'

Derived terms

• dickied up