uglify

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to make a person, place, or thing ugly or less attractive

   Heavy advertising boards would uglify the historic town square.

2. 2
   verb

   to become ugly or less attractive

   Without maintenance, the painted surface will fade and uglify over time.

3. 3
   verb

   computing: to reduce source code to a compact, difficult-to-read form; to minify

   The build tool can uglify the JavaScript before deployment.

Formed in English from ugly + -ify ("make or become"), on the pattern of beautify. The computing sense developed much later from the names and terminology of software minification tools.

Topics