Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tog up v.

also tog out
[tog v. (2)]

1. to dress someone up (in their best clothes); to decorate a room.

[UK]‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 101: Tallyho was perplexed to know how to tog himself out in a way suitable to make his appearance in the gay world of fashion.
[UK]Metropolitan Mag. XIV Sept. 333: This was the first and last time I was a tinny-hunterbut it came just in time to tog me out to the nines.
[UK] ‘The Queen of the Nice Little Islands’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 320: I’ll tog him out in such a style.
[UK]Comic Almanack Aug. 278: Me haveing tuk the hopertunaty of Toggin myself out in 1 off the hoffisirs castoff sutes.
[UK] ‘She’s Gentle as a Tiger’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 41: I’d hug her to my buzzum, / And tog her out so smart.
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 108/1: Curly [...] ‘togged’ himself up, and after a present or two, succeeded into ‘kidding’ the fair Lucy from her mother’s ‘padding-ken.’.
[UK]Five Years’ Penal Servitude 240: He’d tog himself up in black, with a white ‘squeeze,’ on a Sunday, and go to two or three different churches.
[US]Lantern (N.O.) 9 July 5: [He’ll] tog you up in one of his model shaped suits.
[SA]B. Mitford Fire Trumpet I 104: We’ll tog you out in no time.
[US]C. M’Govern Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds 44: As for Pablo, we togged him out agin in de Moro clothes he had when we abducted him.

2. to get dressed up, esp. in preparation for a night out, a party or similar event.

[UK]Wild Boys of London I 82/1: We’ll all tog up, and I’ll have a gal, I will.
[NZ]N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 2 Oct. 19/2: An' now haint by no means so dusty / W’en I togs myself hout in fal-lal .
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 18/4: Once every year, this poor monomaniac used to tog out in her bridal finery, which had grown yellow, mildewed, and rusty with the years, and so [...] she would sit and wait in the same old spot for him who never again returned.
[UK]Albert Chevalier ‘My Sun. Out’ 🎵 On my Sunday out, I hallus togs hup ar lar mode.
[US]C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 49: The next morning I went down the line and togged out.
[US]J. Flynt World of Graft 103: First thing I did was to tog up with the best clothes an’ jool’ry ’t I could buy.
[US]‘Hugh McHugh’ John Henry 14: My lady friend togs out in her revelry rags.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 14/2: [I]n the end there were many with cabs ordered and hair in crimp at 7 o’clock, setting about togging up for the party.
[US]Eve. World (NY) 22 Nov. 18/4: The Horse Show is all right for the [...] millionaires [...] But how silly for people like Mrs Kittingly to tog themselves out and go.
[Aus]D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 168: You should have togged up, Pudden.
[US]H.C. Woodbridge ‘Miscellany’ in AS XXXVI:3 228: tog up, v. To dress up.
[UK]D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 134: When he was ‘supremely bonkers,’ he would tog up in the fatigues.