"dress the house" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dresses the house",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressing the house",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressed the house",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressed the house",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "dress the house (third-person singular simple present dresses the house, present participle dressing the house, simple past and past participle dressed the house)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Theater",
          "orig": "en:Theater",
          "parents": [
            "Art",
            "Entertainment",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1917, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), page cccxlvi:",
          "text": "[…] to pay this tax through inviting a certain class of the public, who are always invited, to theatres of standing to dress the house.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1931, Bernard Shaw, Our Theatre in the Nineties, volume 24, page 246:",
          "text": "[…] we critics were not his fellow-guests, but simply deadheads whose business it was to \"dress the house\" and write puffs.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, Lawrence Stern, School and Community Theater Management: A Handbook for Survival:",
          "text": "The box office in a reserved seat house and the ushers in a non-reserved situation are responsible for dressing the house—that is, seating the audience so as to elicit the maximum response, […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To position oneself, or others, so as to make the auditorium appear fuller than it really is."
      ],
      "id": "en-dress_the_house-en-verb-8Sl6tQey",
      "links": [
        [
          "theater",
          "theater"
        ],
        [
          "position",
          "position"
        ],
        [
          "auditorium",
          "auditorium"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(theater) To position oneself, or others, so as to make the auditorium appear fuller than it really is."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "entertainment",
        "lifestyle",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dress the house"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dresses the house",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressing the house",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressed the house",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dressed the house",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "dress the house (third-person singular simple present dresses the house, present participle dressing the house, simple past and past participle dressed the house)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "en:Theater"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1917, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), page cccxlvi:",
          "text": "[…] to pay this tax through inviting a certain class of the public, who are always invited, to theatres of standing to dress the house.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1931, Bernard Shaw, Our Theatre in the Nineties, volume 24, page 246:",
          "text": "[…] we critics were not his fellow-guests, but simply deadheads whose business it was to \"dress the house\" and write puffs.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, Lawrence Stern, School and Community Theater Management: A Handbook for Survival:",
          "text": "The box office in a reserved seat house and the ushers in a non-reserved situation are responsible for dressing the house—that is, seating the audience so as to elicit the maximum response, […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To position oneself, or others, so as to make the auditorium appear fuller than it really is."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "theater",
          "theater"
        ],
        [
          "position",
          "position"
        ],
        [
          "auditorium",
          "auditorium"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(theater) To position oneself, or others, so as to make the auditorium appear fuller than it really is."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "entertainment",
        "lifestyle",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dress the house"
}