glow-up

See also: glowup and glow up

English

Alternative forms

• glowup, glow up

Etymology

From glow +‎ up, modelled after such deverbals as blow-up; diachronically, probably not a deverbal from the verb glow up, which was back-formed from the noun.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Noun

glow-up (plural glow-ups)

1. (slang) A major and impressive transformation in appearance, talent, power, etc.

   Antonym: glow-down

   • 2017, Vicky Pattison, My Sister's Wedding, →ISBN:

     I recognised this in college, before he got his teeth done, before he got the tan and the #confidence and the style, back when he was obsessed with Eminem and had terrible bleached hair. I bagged him as my bestie nice and early, before his uber glow-up.

   • 2018, Hannah Jewell, She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolutions, and Massively Crushed It, unnumbered page:

     Let us now marvel at a lady who achieved one of the most impressive glow ups in the thousand-plus-years history of the Byzantine Empire: Empress Theodora.

   • 2020, Sarah Bahr, "Powerful Women Of Newfields", Newfields, Spring 2020, page 8:

     As the country's foremost fountain fashioner in the early 20th century, this Hoosier gave the gardens of wealthy Americans their glow-ups.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:glow-up.

Related terms

• glow up