spit and polish

1. 1.

   careful attention to order and appearance (as in the military)

   Broaderorderliness

   military

Questions about spit and polish

What does spit and polish mean?

spit and polish means "careful attention to order and appearance (as in the military)".

Is spit and polish a common word?

spit and polish is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.