vamp up

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vamp up

1. To repair or refurbish something to make it look new or modern. A noun or pronoun can be used between "vamp" and "up." I've really been wanting to vamp the storefront up a little bit, because it really sticks out next to these sleek new shops around in the area. He vamped up his car with some repairs to the body and a bright new coat of paint.
2. To improvise something; to create or fabricate something from nothing or very little. A noun or pronoun can be used between "vamp" and "up." I had totally forgotten about the interview, so I vamped up a few questions an hour or so beforehand based on the Wikipedia article about him. We could all tell he was vamping the music up on the spot.
See also: up
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

vamp up

v.
1. To refurbish, improve, or embellish something: The designers vamped up the website using contemporary colors. I bought an old bookshelf and vamped it up with a new coat of paint.
2. To put something together; fabricate or improvise something: With no hard news available about the summit meeting, the reporters vamped up questions based only on rumor. When my turn came to tell a story, I vamped one up from tales I had heard as a child.
See also: up
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Both subjects are wearing leggings with beadwork on the flaps but no beadwork on the vamps, as well as the pointed big toe feature on the soles.
Balaam noted, that one of the best things about Vamp TV is that 'there are some really exceptional kids' and that is the underlying message of Vamp TV, that 'you guys are fantastic, look at what you have got, you have this humour and skills and ability.
Bewitch and bewilder with Venus Vamp, a limited edition set available in deep amethyst.
While watching the fluorescent VAMP travel through axons, however, the scientists realized that the microtubules were transporting packets containing large amounts of the protein, many more molecules than needed to form a single synaptic vesicle.
To make the vamp pattern, cut a piece of aluminum foil big enough to cover the front half of your foot.
But Wallner says that in the same year that Vamp reached its peak the pastels favored by Drew Barrymore sent her fans to chain drug cosmetic sections for the same "pouty, pearly" hues in nail enamels.
In Vamps and Tramps, Camille Paglia's latest volume of book reviews, essays and interviews, one of America's most popular social critics gathers together virtually everything she's published in the past few years, including--lest we missed them--the jacket blurbs she's contributed to various books.
If this can be definitively ruled out, it would be interesting to have a "line-up" of several drawings of males to see if blind judges would match the Mike Vamp on the cover with Renier's picture.
The proverbial nail in the coffin occurred a few months later when Transvision Vamp where on tour in the US and Wendy bumped into Pete Thomas, the drummer from The Attractions.
This issue of MoccasinCorner begins a series of articles on 19th century Southern Plains tribes which make partially beaded hard sole moccasins with fringe on the moccasin vamp and trailing edge fringe at the heel.
Veronese II by Chacott A Japanese-made, lightweights shoe for students, with a tapered V-shaped vamp. $90, www.ffreedusa.com
More importantly, Ronan has transformed Michael into a water vamp, a subspecies of vampire with roots in the lost city of Atlantis.