Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To dress or groom (oneself) with meticulous or excessive attention to detail.
- v. To dress or groom oneself with elaborate care; preen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To dross or deck (one's self) in a formal and affected manner.
- To be formal or affected.
Wiktionary
- v. To spend time improving ones appearance (often in front of a mirror).
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Prov. Eng. & Scot. To be formal or affected in dress or manners; -- often with
up .
WordNet 3.0
- v. dress or groom with elaborate care
Etymologies
- Perhaps alteration of prim1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“No woman, "primp" herself for the sitting as she may, can present her soul to the dapper gentleman under the canopy of black velvet as Sully saw it.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 097, January, 1876
“Female bonobos and chimpanzees have been seen to put dead rats on their heads and "primp" themselves in the mirror, suggesting that even fashion and vanity are not unique to humans.”
“Using a little water, smooth, primp or sculpt as desired.”
“Most stories do something satisfying with the mess of tedium and violence that is living; they give it focus and form, tone it up, calm it down, shape it tidily, fluff it or primp it or tame its wilder edges, until you have something sleek and purring in your hands, rather than the slightly unkempt beast that life usually resembles, with a tendency to charge at you out of dark places.”
“As for me, la délégatrice, I've got beds to make, a patio to sweep, flower pots to primp ... and one larger-than-life Mom to greet at the Marseilles airport tomorrow.”
“Coming with that, apparently, comes the ridiculous social calendar that my sister has planned out, so I'm just gonna upload some pictures to prove I actually got on the plane and go primp a bit.”
“And just as Hamlet's mother said, "the lady doth protest too much," "the narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much" in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life.”
The Huffington Post: Mark Goulston, M.D.: Rage -- Coming Soon From a Narcissist Near You
“And it's refreshing to see a teenage female lead who doesn't primp or pine.”
The Huffington Post: Avital Binshtock: An Environmentalist's Review of True Grit
“The closing up shopkeeper stars give us a final primp to themselves on that rising plane of light while birds of every fair feather smooth down the sharp shoulders of coming day with all but their brightest as if to say we know we are but shoelaces to her soon to be running along side the current alive wind's own two feet.”
“Los Angeles Magazine's Best of LA 2010 list includes the best places to shop and primp.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘primp’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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summerwing's Words
proctosigmoidoscopy, horrendous, cichlid, implode, nostalgic, firmament, elucidate, quintet, rhombus, mack, pithy, rambunctious and 304 more...
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GRE 3500 P
paean, pall, palliate, pallid, palpable, palpitate, paltry, pan, panache, panegyric, pantomime, paraphernalia and 93 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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favorite words
ennui, bonhomie, eschew, liaison, serendipity, lovely, dusk, kitten, epitome, sexy, beloved, darling and 396 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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useful vocab
pysmatic, relentless, storge, preamble, oscillate, itinerary, frolic, frolicsome, abdicate, frolicking, divergent, abnegate and 312 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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I like the sound of that!
Words that I find euphonious, eurhythmic, or just generally fun to say.
euphonious, gossamer, spelunking, moist, bedridden, rutabaga, quagmire, succotash, hootenany, glacial, sesquicentennial, caucus and 77 more...
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embellish
and embellishment and embellishing
trim, deck, dress, garnish, adorn, embroider, grace, decorate, aggrandize, dramatize, dramatise, pad and 64 more...
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some of my favorites
flourish, oddment, persnickety, obfuscate, folly, moxie, flimflam, fisticuffs, whicker, sibilance, filch, succor and 76 more...
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blodgetm's Words
thousand, peradventure, gargantuan, dropsy, trilobite, charisma, fealty, intransigent, frangible, cacaphony, linguist, crystal and 9 more...
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difficult-list37
precept, precipitate, preclude, precocious, precursor, predetermine, predicament, predilection, predispose, preeminent, preempt, preen and 40 more...
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The Bad
simper, kiss, prawn, boil, globule, mince, entrepreneur, tress, discombobulate, smarmy, undulate, paunch and 4 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for primp.

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