Word.ws English Dictionary

dresses up

dresses up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dress up.

Meaning of dress up

Verb

dress up (third-person singular simple present dresses up, present participle dressing up, simple past and past participle dressed up)

  1. (intransitive) To put on special or fancy clothes.
    • Everyone dressed up for the graduation ball.
    Synonyms:
    gussy up
    Antonyms:
    dress down
  2. (intransitive, often) To put on a costume portraying oneself as a particular type of character or well-known person.
    • We're having a party on Saturday, but you must dress up as a famous historical figure.
  3. (often, transitive) To put a costume on (someone) portraying them as a particular type of character or well-known person.
    • The cat hated when they dressed him up for Halloween.
  4. (transitive) To decorate; to prettify.
    • Mistress, your father prays you leave your books,
      And help to dress your sister’s chamber up:
      You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  5. (transitive) To present in a favorable light.
    • You can dress up that proposal however you want; it's still going to go over like a lead balloon.
    Synonyms:
    spin

Questions about dresses up

What is dresses up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Dresses up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dress up.

Words near dresses up in the dictionary

  1. dresses off
  2. dresses out
  3. dresses the house
  4. dresses the part
  5. dresses to kill
  6. dresses up
  7. dressest
  8. dresseth
  9. dressful
  10. dressfuls
  11. Dressgate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dresses up (page history and authors); dress up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dresses up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dresses_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.