"Butch up"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 3, 2005, at 4:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> This is something that I heard for the first time, today. However,
> according to a post to the Double-Tongued Word-Wrester Dictionary: A
> Growing Dictionary of Old and New Words From the Fringes of English
> <http://www.doubletongued.org/>, it dates back to at least the movie,
> Die Hard With A Vengeance.

i don't find it on this site, at least as an entry.  grant, you there?

but this one's been around a while in gay male circles.  "butch up"
your behavior, clothes, decor, etc., or just "butch it up": act
conventionally masculine (to conceal your homosexuality, to avoid
alienating people, whatever).  i'm away from my relevant sources, but
i'm pretty sure it goes back a few decades at least.  it's an
entirely natural development from the adjective "butch".

arnold