adonise

present singular third person adonises · participle present adonising · participle past adonised · past adonised · alternative Adonise · alternative adonize · alternative Adonize

1. transitiveTo embellish or adorn, especially in order to improve the appearance of.

   Of all the looming Negroes that Lincoln could have brought into the White House to adonise his cause, Johnson had been his choice, with the scuttling train of a monitor lizard.

   2013, Steven Douglas, Lincoln’s Bedsheet, →ISBN

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   Delighted with each other......we rambled....arm in arm......about the citron groves;.......and, when a mossy bank invited our repose...my charmer would weave garlands of flowers to adonise her shepherd ; ..........recline upon my arm..... and to the gentle lullaby of a murmuring stream..... sink into forgetfulness

   1804, Christoph Martin Wieland, Confessions in Elysium: Or, The Adventures of a Platonic, pages 73–74

   Formerly, if not exactly to the same extent at the present day, mineral substances were only made use of to adonise the complexion ; indeed, every composition is qualified with this name, whether it be white or red, which women, and even men (coxcombs), with a clear skin, subserve to embellish their faces, with a view to imitate the colours of youth, or artificially to repair the absence of them.

   1830, an old army surgeon, Economy of the hands and feet, fingers and toes, page 107

2. intransitiveTo enhance one's own appearance.

   Leaving a breath to swell his tradesmen's books, To adonise, to smile, and kill with looks;

   1820, Peter Bayley, Sketches from St. George's Fields, page 122

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   Since I parted with Darnley, who went in to adonise, I believe, Cameron has been hindering me with acknowledgments and regrets.

   1859, Mrs. Octavius Freire Owen, Raised to the Peerage: A Novel, page 158

   Whenever I find myself growing vapourish, I rouse myself, wash, and put on a clean shirt, brush my hair and clothes, tie my shoestrings neatly, and in fact adonise as I were going out.

   1891, John Keats (ed Sir Sidney Colvin), Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends, page 291

present singular third person Adonises · participle present Adonising · participle past Adonised · past Adonised

1. alternativeAlternative form of adonise.

   both male and female Adonise their tails in this manner, which gives them a remarkable appearance amongst all other birds.

   1828, Charles Waterton, B. Fellows, Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820 & 1824

   3 more examples

   He next tootled for half an hour upon a one-keyed flute, and then proceeded to Adonise. Notwithstanding all that some writers have said about a physical aristocracy, — an air of refinement,— which is perceptible under the veriest rags, I am entirely of the opinion, with Bob Acres in the Rivals, that dress "does make a difference."

   1845, The Asiatic journal and monthly miscellany - Volume 4, page 422

   And more — in the course of your acquaintauce with the Tantrums, you must have noticed, of a cold evening, when Tantrum desired to " Adonise," that he might be intensely agreeable to all beholders, and " lovelily dreadful" to the ladies, that "that razor" would cut his chin in defiance of all he could do to the contrary;

   75, George R. Graham, Edgar Allan Poe, Graham's Magazine - Volumes 28-29, page 1846

   You swear — you reprobate, so you do — when your bootmaker seeks to Adonise your instep, or the pine you patronized over night quarrels with your coffee in the morning.

   1848, John William Carleton, The Sporting review, page 1