If someone is dressed up, they are wearing special clothes, in order to look smarter than usual or in order to disguise themselves.
You're all dressed up. Are you going somewhere?
You don't have to get dressed up for this party.
2. adjective
If you say that something is dressed upas something else, you mean that someone has tried to make it more acceptable or attractive by making it seem like that other thing.
[disapproval]
He tried to organise things so that the trip would be dressed up as a U.N. mission. [+ as]
[Also + in]
3. dressed up to the nines
dressed up in British English
(drɛst ʌp)
adjective
1.
wearing smart clothes
You're all dressed up. Are you going somewhere?
You don't have to get dressed up for this party.
2. dressed up as sth
Examples of 'dressed up' in a sentence
dressed up
But she'd dressed up her irrational convictions in the fancy clothes of literary allusion.
Val McDermid THE LAST TEMPTATION (2002)
What I don't see is why we have to get so dressed up to do it.
Christina Jones TICKLED PINK (2002)
In other languages
dressed up
British English: dressed up ADJECTIVE
If someone is dressed up, they are wearing special clothes, in order to look smarter than usual or in order to disguise themselves.
You're all dressed up. Are you going somewhere?
American English: dressed up
Brazilian Portuguese: arrumado
Chinese: 盛装的
European Spanish: acicalado
French: bien habillé
German: herausgeputzt
Italian: elegante
Japanese: 正装する
Korean: 정장을 한
European Portuguese: arrumado
Latin American Spanish: acicalado
All related terms of 'dressed up'
dress up
If you dress up or dress yourself up , you put on different clothes, in order to make yourself look smarter than usual or to disguise yourself.
dressed up as sth
portrayed as
dressed up to the nines
If you say that someone is dressed up to the nines or dressed to the nines , you mean that they are wearing very smart or elegant clothes.
all dressed up with nowhere to go
prepared for something, but with no opportunity to do it
mutton dressed as lamb
If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb , you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive .