glow up meaning (slang): definition, etymology and quotations

glow-up

nounalso spelled glow-up

Etymology From glow + up, modelled after such deverbals as blow-up; diachronically, probably not a deverbal from the verb glow up, which was back-formed from the noun.

Slang A major and impressive transformation in appearance, talent, power, etc.

I recognised this in college, before he got his teeth done, before he got the tan and the #confidence and the style, back when he was obsessed with Eminem and had terrible bleached hair. I bagged him as my bestie nice and early, before his uber glow-up.2017, Vicky Pattison, My Sister's Wedding, →ISBN:
Let us now marvel at a lady who achieved one of the most impressive glow ups in the thousand-plus-years history of the Byzantine Empire: Empress Theodora.2018, Hannah Jewell, She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolutions, and Massively Crushed It, unnumbered page:

1 more example

As the country's foremost fountain fashioner in the early 20th century, this Hoosier gave the gardens of wealthy Americans their glow-ups.2020, Sarah Bahr, "Powerful Women Of Newfields", Newfields, Spring 2020, page 8

Related terms: glow up

glow up

verb

Slang To undergo a glow-up.

We've all changed quite a bit since freshman year (thank goodness), but some people have particularly "glowed up."2017 May 11, Rebecca Noel, “Senior Glow Ups”, in Lecacy, The Kinkaid School, page 29:
“Every single person in the 'Degrassi' cast somehow glowed up in the best way.”2018, @agerenesh, quoted in Express, 14 June 2018, 15 June 2018, page 32

Slang To cause to undergo a glow-up.

Speaking as a longtime iPhone user, I find it undeniable that Portrait mode — a marquee technology in a recent edition of the most popular phones in the world — has been glowed up.2019 February 24, Alexis C. Madrigal, “No, You Don't Really Look Like That”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, page 18: