gold-plate
1. Literally, to coat something (usually a base metal) in a thin layer of gold. I just don't understand why you would ever want—let alone need—to gold-plate your bathtub. Do you know if the designer gold-plated this bracelet? Why on earth did you gold-plate your hubcaps?
2. By extension, to incorporate unnecessary, superfluous, or overbearing refinements, additions, or embellishments into something. Congress took what should have been a straightforward clean water initiative and gold-plated it into a cumbersome, overreaching, and wildly impractical mess of a bill. Knowing that the city council would be footing the bill, the architect tried to gold-plate the design for the new courthouse. Don't gold-plate your request if you actually want the board to approve it.
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