dolling up

verb

present participle of doll up
1
as in decorating
to make more attractive by adding something that is beautiful or becoming if you were to doll up those Shaker-style rooms, you'd ruin their simple elegance

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in dressing
to put on one's best or formal clothes got all dolled up for the party

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for dolling up
  1. decorating
  2. dressing
  3. adorning
  4. dressing up
  5. doing up
Verb
  • The person buried there is believed to have belonged to the Linear Pottery culture — named for the distinctive spiral and wavy patterns decorating its pottery.
    — Andrea Margolis, FOXNews.com, 17 Oct. 2026
  • The city is also bringing back its Halloween decorating contest to see which blocks can have the most Halloween spirit.
    — Jack Springgate, CBS News, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of decorating
Verb
  • Read on to see how 14 Vogue editors tackle black-tie wedding guest dressing to get started.
    — Fred Sahai, Vogue, 19 Oct. 2026
  • Etiquette writers told women in the 1920s to instruct female guests to de-layer in dressing rooms, typically on the second level.
    — Joe Kinsey OutKick, FOXNews.com, 17 Oct. 2026
Definition of dressing
Verb
  • Tourism picks up Whether arriving from within Chile or overseas, tourists are venturing into the remote, inhospitable areas of the Atacama to admire the millions of flowers adorning vast areas of the desert, stretching from the coast to the horizon.
    — Nayara Batschke, Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 2026
  • Growing up thousands of miles away from the Hollywood sign in Bratislava, Slovakia, ADÉLA spent her childhood studying American pop stars and had posters of Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears adorning her bedroom walls.
    — Hannah Dailey, Billboard, 6 Oct. 2026
Definition of adorning
Verb
  • Let Emma Bovary daydream about dressing up in a velvet dress and playing an Érard grand piano for a Parisian audience.
    — Yiyun Li, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Read more below Best villain The best villain What is Halloween without someone dressing up as a villain?
    — Chris McMullen, Space.com, 9 Oct. 2026
Definition of dressing up
Verb
  • What in the world are those overgrown basketballs doing up there?
    — Rui Bo, The Conversation, 18 May 2026
  • Wednesday’s practice started with some of the players doing up-downs after forgetting equipment.
    — Anthony Solorzano, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2026
Definition of doing up
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

dollies
dolling up
dollish
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Cite this Entry

“Dolling up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dolling%20up. Accessed 21 Oct. 2026.

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