pad out

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pad out (third-person singular simple present pads out, present participle padding out, simple past and past participle padded out)

1. (idiomatic) To add something extra to something to make it appear more substantial.

   Some students pad out their essays by adding a whole lot of quotes from random sources.

   Have you heard about girls padding out their bras to make their breasts look bigger?

   • 2015, James Lambert, “Lexicography as a teaching tool: A Hong Kong case study”, in Lan Li, Jamie McKeown, Liming Liu, editors, Dictionaries and corpora: Innovations in reference science. Proceedings of ASIALEX 2015 Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, page 146:

     With regard to definition-writing students, as a result of having spent years padding out written assignments in order to meet word-length requirements, were somewhat bemused to be told that fewer words were better than a long, wordy definition.

2. (idiomatic, slang) To sleep or go to bed.

   Because of my job I usually pad out just before nine o'clock.

   My housemate was very annoyed to find my friends padded out on the lounge room floor this morning.

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