gussy up

English

Alternative forms

• gussie up

Verb

gussy up (third-person singular simple present gussies up, present participle gussying up, simple past and past participle gussied up) (chiefly US)

1. (informal, intransitive) To don fancy clothing; to dress up particularly in flattering or specially altered garments.

   Synonym: doll up

   You bet she'll gussy up for the party.

   • 2017 June 30, Ruth La Ferla, “In ‘The Beguiled,’ Pretty Confections Whipped Up to Seduce”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Not trusting filmgoers to catch the drift, Ms. Coppola underscores the women’s attempts to gussy up with snippets of arch dialogue.

2. (informal, transitive) To make fancy or attractive, as by artificial or contrived means.

   Synonym: spruce up

   You can have plain green beans, or gussie them up with a bit of cheese and onion.

   • 2006, Thomas Hackett, Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, New York, NY: HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 22:

     WWE and WCW gussied up the ritual with a lot of shock-and-awe pyrotechnics and the most innovative use of video graphics this side of MTV. Not so Extreme Championship Wrestling.

   • 2021 September 29, Jennifer Szalai, “In ‘Rationality,’ Steven Pinker Sticks Up (Again) for Reason’s Role in Human Progress”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     The trouble arrives when he tries to gussy up his psychologist’s hat with his more elaborate public intellectual’s attire.

Translations

dress up

• Dutch: opdirken (nl)
• Finnish: pynttääntyä (fi)
• French: fagoter (fr)
• German: aufbrezeln (de)
• Polish: wystroić się (pl) pf, stroić się (pl) impf
• Russian: принаряжа́ться (ru) (prinarjažátʹsja)
• Spanish: arreglarse (es), embellecer (es)

Further reading

• “gussy up v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present