betterfy

English

Etymology

better +‎ -fy

Verb

betterfy (third-person singular simple present betterfies, present participle betterfying, simple past and past participle betterfied)

1. (transitive, US, slang, rare, nonstandard) to make better
   • 1857, Frances Trollope, Lynch Law; or, the Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw‎^[1], page 25:

     The kind-hearted Clio encouraged her hopes, and recounted sundry histories which she had heard from their forest customers, of the betterfying effects of the handsome locations round Natchez.

   • 1909, The Civic League Bulletin of Newport, R.I., volume 4, number 1, page 5:

     And so the citizens of Fort Wayne desiring to “beautify and betterfy” their home town looked about for a leader and found one in Prof. Charles Zueblin, a civic evangelist who had stirred Grand Rapids in a somewhat similar movement about a year before.

   • 2011, Erica Hayes, Blood Cursed‎^[2], page 304:

     You betterfy me, angel.