Word.ws English Dictionary

smartens up

smartens up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of smarten up.

Meaning of smarten up

Verb

smarten up (third-person singular simple present smartens up, present participle smartening up, simple past and past participle smartened up)

  1. (intransitive) To wear smart clothes and look more stylish
  2. (intransitive) To make something look smart or smarter.
    • All the trains and the 300 stations were smartened up, "and we dared to advertise" - something that had previously been impossible because the offering was not good enough.2026 April 1, Christian Wolmar, “Managers must be given freedom to make decisions”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 34
  3. (intransitive) To become less stupid or naive
  4. (transitive) To make less stupid or naive

Questions about smartens up

What is smartens up the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Smartens up is the third-person singular simple present indicative of smarten up.

Words near smartens up in the dictionary

  1. smartened
  2. smartened up
  3. smartening
  4. smartening up
  5. smartens
  6. smartens up
  7. smarter
  8. smartest
  9. smarteth
  10. smartful
  11. smartglasses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smartens up (page history and authors); smarten 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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