Wiktionary
a. (context idiomatic English) paying much attention to outward appearance
Usage examples of "spit-and-polish".
The hawsers and the hairy cablets did indeed look heavy, lumpish and untidy with these Irish pennants all along - not perhaps unseamanlike, but something that no crack spit-and-polish ship could bear for a moment.
Jack was not one of the modern spit-and-polish captains whose idea of a crack ship was one that could shift topmasts five seconds quicker than the others in the harbour, in which great quantities of brass outshone the sun at all times and in all weathers, in which the young gentlemen wore tight white breeches, cocked hats and Hessian boots with gilt twist edging and a gold tassel, singularly well adapted for reefing topsails, and in which the round-shot in the racks and garlands was carefully blacked while the naturally black hoops of the mess-kids was sanded to a silvery whiteness.
I guess we all had dreams of guided missile cruisers or giant carriers, as far as being part of a spit-and-polish organization, but everybody kept telling us the real Navy was in tin cans.
A spit-and-polish New Englander, he wasn't used to the candid ways of the wily Texans.