dicky up

present singular third person dickies up · participle present dickying up · participle past dickied up · past dickied up

1. IrelandUKslangTo adorn, dress up, spruce up.

   I go to Edges. Pick up a tin of white outdoor paint. Last one in the shop. 'First Holy Communions,' the man says, by way of explanation. 'People dickying up their properties.'

   2014, Ciara Geraghty, Now That I've Found You, London: Hodder, →ISBN, page 131

   1 more example

   The way they dicky up the corpse in the fancy funeral parlours today, with cosmetics and other tricks of the trade, and dressed in the best clothes, one would think they were trying to tell you what Our Lord said about the little daughter of Jairus, 'She is not dead but sleeping.'

   1998, Criostoir O'Flynn, There Is an Isle: A Limerick Boyhood, Boulder, C.O.: Mercier Press; Irish American Book Company, →ISBN, page 206