doll up

English

Etymology

From doll (noun).

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

doll up (third-person singular simple present dolls up, present participle dolling up, simple past and past participle dolled up)

1. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To dress up finely or elaborately; to deck up. (often of ostentatious display) [from 1906]

   She's all dolled up with nowhere to go.

   • 1970, Noel Streatfeild, Thursday’s Child:

     Jem looked at her clothes. "You wouldn’t get far dolled up like that."

Translations

to dress up finely or elaborately

• Dutch: optutten (nl)
• Finnish: pyntätä (fi), pynttäytyä (fi)
• German: sich schick machen
• Italian: essere tirato a lucido
• Portuguese: embonecar
• Spanish: emperifollar (es)

References

• “doll, v.²”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Further reading

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