getup
Pluralgetups
- 1An outfit or costume, especially one that is showy or otherwise unusual.
She arrived at the gala in a feathered getup that drew stares from across the room.
The mascot's getup was so heavy that he needed a break every fifteen minutes.
Similaroutfit, costume, ensemble
Note
Usually said with a touch of amusement, about clothes that get noticed: a shark costume, a marching band's odd outfits. Both spellings run side by side. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) and Edna Ferber's Cimarron (1930) hyphenate it, while the Reading Eagle in 1917 already writes getup. It is casual, chiefly American, and rarely neutral; calling someone's clothes a getup passes judgment on them.
- 2Alternative form of get-up-and-go.
Retirement didn't sap his getup; within a month he was volunteering three days a week.
What the team lacked in talent it made up for in sheer getup.
Note
A clipped form of get-up-and-go, and like it an uncountable noun: you have plenty of getup or none at all. The article matters, because a getup means something else entirely, an outfit. Where the two could be confused, the full get-up-and-go is the safer choice.
- 3The overall layout and production style of a publication, such as a magazine.
Critics praised the quarterly's plain getup, with its simple covers and generous margins.
The publisher spent heavily on the getup of the anniversary edition, choosing thick paper and a cloth binding.
Note
Reviewers and publishers use it for a publication judged as a made object: covers, margins, paper, binding, the whole design taken together rather than the words inside. It sits close to design and format, but it takes in production choices too, which is why money spent on an anniversary edition goes into its getup.
- 4
Practice
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Origin
Formed from get + up.