Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To deck out in fine clothes and ornaments; bedizen.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To dress with flax for spinning, as a distaff.
  • To dress with clothes; attire; deck; bedizen.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To dress; to attire.
  • transitive verb To dress gaudily; to overdress; to bedizen; to deck out.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To dress with flax for spinning.
  • verb transitive To dress with clothes; attire; deck; bedizen.
  • verb transitive To dress showily; adorn; dress out.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb dress up garishly and tastelessly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly Middle Dutch disen, to prepare a distaff with flax for spinning, from Middle Low German dise, disene, bunch of flax.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From dialectal dize ("to put tow on a distaff"), from Middle English *disen, from Old English *disan, *disian, from *dise ("bunch of flax on a distaff"), from Proto-Germanic *disanō (“distaff”), of unknown origin, equivalent to dize +‎ -en. Cognate with Middle Low German dise, disene ("distaff"). More at dize.

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