Meaning of white up | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To become or make (something) white.
   intransitive, literally, transitive
2. To put on or wear whiteface.
   intransitive, transitive

Examples

“The final scene is a ritual penitence: as he leaves the park, he comes upon a student rag group, all whited up as clowns.”

“...performance reception was hardly a possibility in 1940s America, which is why the producers had to white up Lee.”

“White Chicks deploys a "reverse" minstrel show technique. Instead of whites "blacking up" to ridicule the oppressed Other, black men (Shawn and Marlon Wayans) "white up" to reveal and critique various instantiations of whiteness.”

“Nick Hedges was a disciple of the avant-garde dancer and choreographer Lindsay Kemp, whose style was for all the performers to white up their face like clowns and move very slowly.”

“In Ghana and Cape Town, Jamaica and Trinidad, local performers blacked up (and whited up and redded up) and created a global form with politics more slippery than anything T. D. Rice ever imagined.”

CEFR level