v. [f. FRENCH a. + -FY.]
1. trans. To make French in form or character, imbue with French qualities, render French-like.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier, Wks. (Grosart), XI. 247. Or will you be Frenchefied with a loue locke downe to your shoulders, wherein you may weare your mistresse fauour?
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., viii. (1628), 281. Arnoldsonne was Frenchefied into Fitz-Arnold, Waltersonne into Fitz-walter, and sundry others the like.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, I. Let. to Editor, p. xiii. Reduce our Sterling Substance into an empty Shadow, or rather frenchify our English Solidity into Froth and Whip-syllabub.
1761. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 125/2. They dressed him in a bag-wig, laced rufles, and frenchified him up in the new mode.
1852. Macaulay, in Life & Lett. (1883), II. 363. What a quantity of French words I have used! I suppose that the subject Frenchifies my style.
2. intr. To become French in ideas, manners, etc.; to have French sympathies.
1775. J. Jekyll, Corr., 19 Aug. (1894), 46. ’Tis in these domesticated visits one Frenchifies most.
1799. European Mag., XXXVI. Nov., 306. What astonishes me most is, that this custom of Frenchifying should be so prevalent among us in the present day!
