| 释义 |
prettify, v.|ˈprɪtɪfaɪ|
Also prettyfy.
[f. pretty a. + -fy]
trans. To make pretty; to represent prettily in a painting or writing. Also fig. Hence ˈprettified ppl. a.; ˈprettifier, one who prettifies; ˈprettifying vbl. n.
1850F. Trollope in F. E. Trollope Life (1895) II. xi. 203 Keep your money to prettify your house, dear son. 1855Hawthorne Eng. Note-Bks. (1870) I. 237, I rather wonder that people of real taste should help nature out, and beautify her, or perhaps rather prettify her so much as they do. 1867G. du Maurier Let. in D. du Maurier Young George du Maurier (1951) 273 Then D and I walked through the lovely Bois de Boulogne to the Mare d'Auteuil which has been brutally modernised and prettyfied. 1889Cent. Dict., Prettified. 1890Univ. Rev. 15 June 181 He has prettified his market town, and thereby lost much of its reality. 1902Academy 12 Apr. 379/2 Keats said it [Leigh Hunt's angelic optimism] did him positive injury by its eternal prettyfying of fine things, and he might have added its eternal prettyfying of common things. 1919B. Tarkington Let. 14 June in On Plays (1959) 13 You know..why all the magazines haf to have the prettified girl cover. 1934Sun (Baltimore) 2 Apr. 8/1 (heading) Prettifying war. Ibid., These endeavors [to outlaw certain forms of warfare] are based on the assumption that we are making progress if somehow we can manage to prettify war. 1936L. C. Douglas White Banners iii. 63 A man doesn't try to prettify himself very much, or make himself over to look different. He wants to be important for owning something rather than being something. 1955Times 24 Aug. 7/4 To anyone who once heard a chanty at sea, such prettified verses, however musical, will always seem a travesty of their originals. 1960W. Miller Canticle for Leibowitz xiv. 151 A place of majesty that overawed the would-be prettifiers. 1970Daily Tel. 21 Feb. 8/5 The 19th-century weakness for prettifying the lives of great men. 1971P. Gresswell Environment 89 Too much prettyfying is damaging enough but the bleak ‘serviceable’ attitude to details causes the more widespread damage... For this reason, many housing estates..are depressing. 1973Times 30 Oct. 14/8 The Cubist works are prettified exercises in taste. 1976Early Music Oct. 402/2 The Dido gathering should be suave and elegant but not prettified or frivolous. |