See spiffy in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for spiffy meaning in English (6.9kB)
{
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{
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},
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. Attested in print from 1852 (see quotations below). Compare the noun spiff, attested from 1859, as well as spiffing (1872) and spiffed (1881), suggesting participle forms of a related verb. Compare also spiv (“a smartly-dressed criminal”), attested from the 20th century.",
"forms": [
{
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"tags": [
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{
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"tags": [
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{
"word": "spiffily"
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{
"word": "spiffiness"
}
],
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{
"ref": "1852, “How Jeremiah Tubbs became engaged in the Irish elections of 1852”, in New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, page 66",
"text": "He was “great” (as he expressed it) with the Bloomer who kept the bar where their club was held, and whom he styled “a spiffy girl,” and who had been graciously please to accept of a pair of very Brummagem-looking earings, set with paste diamonds, with which he presented her.",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "1906 August 26, “Newport News in London”, in The New York Times, page 9",
"text": "The charming twins came last week, and you should see their clothes. ‘Spiffy’ is the word.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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"Dapper; fine or neat, especially in style of clothing or other appearance."
],
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[
"Dapper",
"dapper"
],
[
"fine",
"fine"
],
[
"neat",
"neat"
],
[
"style",
"style"
],
[
"clothing",
"clothing"
],
[
"appearance",
"appearance"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) Dapper; fine or neat, especially in style of clothing or other appearance."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "spiv"
},
{
"word": "spiff up"
},
{
"word": "spruce up"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "snazzy"
},
{
"word": "spiffing"
},
{
"word": "spivvy"
}
],
"tags": [
"informal"
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{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "schick"
},
{
"alt": "おしゃれ",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "oshare",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "お洒落"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "narjadnyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "нарядный"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ščegolevatyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "щеголеватый"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "modnjavyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "моднявый"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "apuesto"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "pulcro"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "şık"
}
]
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{
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. Attested in print from 1852 (see quotations below). Compare the noun spiff, attested from 1859, as well as spiffing (1872) and spiffed (1881), suggesting participle forms of a related verb. Compare also spiv (“a smartly-dressed criminal”), attested from the 20th century.",
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"pos": "noun",
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{
"categories": [],
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"A dapper person."
],
"id": "en-spiffy-en-noun-ZsovuDtd",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(informal) A dapper person."
],
"tags": [
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}
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. Attested in print from 1852 (see quotations below). Compare the noun spiff, attested from 1859, as well as spiffing (1872) and spiffed (1881), suggesting participle forms of a related verb. Compare also spiv (“a smartly-dressed criminal”), attested from the 20th century.",
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{
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"tags": [
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"expansion": "spiffy (comparative spiffier, superlative spiffiest)",
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
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"word": "spiv"
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{
"word": "spiff up"
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{
"word": "spruce up"
}
],
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1852, “How Jeremiah Tubbs became engaged in the Irish elections of 1852”, in New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, page 66",
"text": "He was “great” (as he expressed it) with the Bloomer who kept the bar where their club was held, and whom he styled “a spiffy girl,” and who had been graciously please to accept of a pair of very Brummagem-looking earings, set with paste diamonds, with which he presented her.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1906 August 26, “Newport News in London”, in The New York Times, page 9",
"text": "The charming twins came last week, and you should see their clothes. ‘Spiffy’ is the word.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Dapper; fine or neat, especially in style of clothing or other appearance."
],
"links": [
[
"Dapper",
"dapper"
],
[
"fine",
"fine"
],
[
"neat",
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[
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"style"
],
[
"clothing",
"clothing"
],
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"appearance",
"appearance"
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],
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"(informal) Dapper; fine or neat, especially in style of clothing or other appearance."
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
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{
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},
{
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "snazzy"
},
{
"word": "spiffing"
},
{
"word": "spivvy"
}
],
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{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "schick"
},
{
"alt": "おしゃれ",
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "oshare",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "お洒落"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "narjadnyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "нарядный"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "ščegolevatyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "щеголеватый"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "modnjavyj",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "моднявый"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "apuesto"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "pulcro"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "dapper, fine or neat",
"word": "şık"
}
],
"word": "spiffy"
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"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. Attested in print from 1852 (see quotations below). Compare the noun spiff, attested from 1859, as well as spiffing (1872) and spiffed (1881), suggesting participle forms of a related verb. Compare also spiv (“a smartly-dressed criminal”), attested from the 20th century.",
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"A dapper person."
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"(informal) A dapper person."
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"word": "spiffy"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.