Definition of Spit and polish

1. Noun. Careful attention to order and appearance (as in the military).

Category relationships: Armed Forces, Armed Services, Military, Military Machine, War Machine
Generic synonyms: Order, Orderliness

Lexicographical Neighbors of Spit And Polish

spiruroidea
spiry
spirytual
spirytuall
spit
spit-and-polish
spit-ball
spit-take
spit-up
spit and bailing wire
spit and polish (current term)
spit curl
spit curls
spit it out
spit of land
spit out
spit take
spit the dummy
spit up
spit wad
spit wads
spital
spitalhouse
spitalhouses

Literary usage of Spit and polish

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford by Leslie Cope Cornford (1914)
"From that day onwards I set myself steadily against bright-work and spit-and-polish. My objection to bright- work is that you have first to dirty it with ..."

2. Heresies of Sea Power by Frederick Thomas Jane (1906)
"That ' spit and polish ' was merely a really essential thing, overdone in the course ... spit and polish is the overgrown child of seeking after efficiency, ..."

3. General Kenney Reports: A Personal History of the Pacific War by George C. Kenney (1997)
"He would never look like a spit-and- polish soldier, but he could visualize and plan a military operation with the best of them. ..."

4. Macmillan's Magazine by David Masson, George Grove, John Morley, Mowbray Morris (1898)
"... to Constitutions of any nation in the future, nor yet of neglecting our gunnery for " spit and polish," important as that is within rational limits. ..."

5. Battlefields of the World War, Western and Southern Fronts: A Study in by Douglas Wilson Johnson (1921)
"... up to that high standard of cleanliness which has earned for the British troops the enviable if somewhat unpoetic name of "the spit-and-polish army. ..."

6. The Russian Army and the Japanese War: Being Historical and Critical by Aleksei Nikolaevich Kuropatkin' (1909)
"spit and polish and parade smartness were considered far more than battle efficiency, and more attention was paid to the " manual exercise " and to ..."

7. The United Service (1904)
"... his force—not "spit and polish" of old fame. Target practice became the continual occupation of the ships, even while the negotiations were in progress. ..."

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