Dictionary

adonise en · VERB

Etymology

From Adonis + -ise.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To 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:
   • 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. (intransitive) To enhance one's own appearance.
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • 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:

Forms