beautify

present singular third person beautifies · participle present beautifying · participle past beautified · past beautified

1. transitiveTo make beautiful; to increase the beauty of.

   1592, Robert Greene, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, London: William Wright, “Robertoes Tale” […] there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you:

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   And now, / This ornament [i.e. beard] / Makes me look dismal will I clip to form; / And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d, / To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.

   c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]

   […] she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay;

   1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter V, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 89

   “[…] I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.”

   1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 15, in Anne of Avonlea, Boston: L.C. Page, page 171

   ‘Boy, you take a big chance,’ Moses say. ‘Them pigeons there to beautify the park, not to eat. The people over here will kill you if you touch a fly.’

   1954, Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners, London: Longman, page 109

   Officials are taking these old palm trees down in several parks and public spaces as they try to beautify the city, and prevent rotting tree trunks from falling on people.

   2026 April 18, Manuel Rueda, “Caracas' iconic macaws threatened by vanishing palm trees”, in National Public Radio, Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio

   Synonyms: adorn, decorate, ornament, prettify · Antonyms: blight, deface, disfigure, mar, uglify

2. intransitiverareTo become beautiful.

   […] it must be a Prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his Creation for ever beautifying in his Eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater Degrees of Resemblance.

   1719, Joseph Addison, “Upon the Immortality of the Soul”, in Maxims, Observations, and Reflections, London: E. Curll, page 88

3. intransitiverareTo make oneself beautiful.

   She’d felt silly when she first put cucumbers on her eyes (to diminish puffiness), or oatmeal on her face (to cleanse the pores and absorb excess oils), or egg yolks in her hair (to make it shine). Her use of groceries had even made my mother laugh, then wonder if she should start to beautify.

   2002, Alice Sebold, chapter 13, in The Lovely Bones, London: Picador, page 156

4. computingSynonym of pretty-print.

   Synonyms: prettify, pretty-print · Antonyms: minify, uglify