gussy up

Verb

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

1. (US, informal, intransitive) To don fancy clothing; to dress up particularly in flattering or specially altered garments.
   • You bet she'll gussy up for the party.
   • Not trusting filmgoers to catch the drift, Ms. Coppola underscores the women’s attempts to gussy up with snippets of arch dialogue.2017 June 30, Ruth La Ferla, “In ‘The Beguiled,’ Pretty Confections Whipped Up to Seduce”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Oct 2018

   Synonyms:

   doll up

2. (US, informal, transitive) To make fancy or attractive, as by artificial or contrived means.
   • You can have plain green beans, or gussie them up with a bit of cheese and onion.
   • 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.2006, Thomas Hackett, Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, New York, NY: HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 22

   Synonyms:

   spruce up