What is "titivate"

Usage examples of "titivate".

Mrs Christmas rushed to the mantelpiece and began to titivate her tight blue curls.

Jack gave the order to splice the main brace, and turning to Pullings he said, 'The painting and titivating we must leave until we are at sea, and of course she don't look pretty.

Chemicals mixed with herbs and natural oils which sting and smell and titivate and which, together with time, will either kill or cure.

She had been titivated off to the nines for the Admiral's inspection, scrubbed by the lifts and braces, sails furled in a body with never a wrinkle.

Throughout the last dogwatch of Sunday, therefore, and in what few moments of leisure the forenoon and afternoon watches of Monday allowed, the captains of the guns and their crews titivated their piece, making sure that all blocks ran free, that all crows, worms, sponges, handspikes and other instruments that ought to be there were there in fact, smoothing their already well-smoothed roundshot, gently swabbing the name painted over the gun-port: Towser, Nancy Dawson, Spitfire, Revenge.

I should add, so you can get the complete picture of life in our clerk's room, that our old lady typist had left us and we had a new girl called Dianne who read quite extraordinarily lurid novels when she wasn't typing, spent a great deal of the day titivating in the loo, and joined Henry in looking pityingly at Albert as he struggled to adjust the petty cash.

Peter Wilkins, caught titivating the altar, knew Jade well as Anna’s attendant who always stood outside St.

Her type would be found at the stadium, at fashion shows, at parties, at the auctions where debtors were sold into bondage, at the market where merchants offered jewels and rare fabrics, perfumes from a dozen worlds, unguents, and titivating lotions.

From an early hour Mr Meares, the gunner, his mate, the quarter-gunners and of course the guncrews, first captain, second captain, sponger, fireman, sail-trimmers, boarders, powder-boys and Marines, had been titivating their pieces, greasing trucks, begging slush from the cooks to ease the blocks, arranging tackles and shot-garlands just so, while the midshipmen and officers in charge of stated divisions also fussed over every detail of powder-horns, wads, cartridge-cases, locks, works and the like: and this each crew did on both the starboard and larboard batteries, for although the Bellona had rather better than five hundred people aboard, that was not enough to provide men for each side, and a single crew had to serve two guns.

She only hoped he wasn't titivating himself, slicking his hair and freshening his breath in the hope of talking her into bed.