Dictionary

betterfy en · VERB

Etymology

From better + -fy.

Meanings

1. (US, nonstandard, rare, slang, transitive) to make better
   • And so the citizens of Fort Wayne desiring to “beautify and betterfy” their home town looked about for a leader and found one in Prof. Charles Zueblin, a civic evangelist who had stirred Grand Rapids in a somewhat similar movement about a year before. 1909, The Civic League Bulletin of Newport, R.I., volume 4, number 1, page 5:
   • The kind-hearted Clio encouraged her hopes, and recounted sundry histories which she had heard from their forest customers, of the betterfying effects of the handsome locations round Natchez. 1857, Frances Trollope, Lynch Law; or, the Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, page 25:
   • You betterfy me, angel. 2011, Erica Hayes, Blood Cursed, page 304:

Forms