Get-up, subs. (colloquial).—1. Dress; constitution and appearance; disguise. See Get-up, verb, sense 1.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xiv. Is that killing get up entirely for your benefit, John? I asked.
1865. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, ch. x. Altogether the get up of a Mauresque en promenade is livelier and smarter than that of a Turkish woman.
1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xii. The graceful, well-appointed Mr. Christian, who sneered at Scales about his get up, having to walk back to the house with only one tail to his coat.
1882. Graphic, 9 Dec., p. 643, c. 2. Comic gets up, which will make the house roar presently, are elaborated with the business air of a judge in banc, or a water-rate collector.
1889. Mirror, 26 Aug., p. 2, c. 1. I cannot, however, congratulate F. C. G. on his sketch of Blowitz; it isn't much like the great man, and the get up is quite too absurd.
1890. Daily Telegraph, 25 Feb., p. 7. col. 7. Dressed as a copurchic, and, giving himself out as an Italian count—thinking to entrap some Transatlantic heiress by his title, fascinating appearance, and gorgeous get up.
Verb. phr. (colloquial).—(1). To prepare (a part, a paper, a case); (2) to arrange (a concert); (3) to dress (as got up regardless, to the nines, to the knocker, to kill, within an inch of one's life); (4) to disguise (as a sailor, a soldier, Henry VIII., a butcher, a nun). See also Get into.
1828. L. Hunt, Essays (Camelot ed.), p. 13. The pocket-books that now contain any literature are got up, as the phrase is, in the most unambitious style.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xviii. Three very gentleman-like, good-looking men, got up to the utmost extent of hunting splendour.
1864. Eton School Days, ch. xviii., p. 207. He felt confident in his power of getting up so that no one would recognise him.
1866. New York Home Journal, Jan. While that admirable old dame, Nature, has been strangely neglectful of much which might be conducive to our comfort, she has gotten up, regardless of expense, a few articles which are good for some purposes, as the witty Hood has told us.
1871. London Figaro, 11 Mar. It is got up very much in the style of the Paris journals, and is very inferior compared with any respectable journal in England.
1889. Polytechnic Magazine, 24 Oct., p. 261. He came specially got up in piebald trousers.
1892. Chevalier. 'The Little Nipper.' I've knowed 'im take a girl on six feet tall; 'E'd git 'imself up dossy, Say 'I'm goin' out wi' Flossie.'
G.H. See George Horne.
Ghastly, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Very:
a popular intensitive;
Cf., Awful, Bloody,
Fucking.
Ghost, subs. (common).—One
who secretly does artistic or
literary work for another person
taking the credit and receiving
the price. [The term was frequently
used during the trial of
Lawes v. Belt in 188(?).] Cf.,
devil.
1890. Daily Telegraph, 8 Feb. The sculptor's ghost is conjured up from the vasty deep of byegone lawsuits.
1892. National Observer, vii., 327 Would not the unkind describe your 'practical man' as a ghost?
Verb. (common).—To prowl; to spy upon; to shadow (q.v.).
The ghost walks (or does not walk) phr. (theatrical).—There is (or is not) money in the treasury.
1853. Household Words, No. 183. When no salaries are forthcoming the ghost doesn't walk.
