Word.ws English Dictionary

dressed

/ˈdɹɛst/

dressed is the simple past and past participle of dress.

Adjective

dressed (not comparable)

  1. Having been subjected to a preparatory process or treatment; treated, prepared.
  2. Prepared for eating, especially by the addition of specific condiments or dressing.
  3. Wearing clothes; attired (now often with qualifying word).
    Synonyms:
    clothed
  4. (in-compounds) Wearing a dress.
    • No longer would our profession’s stoical symbol of equality be the blindfolded, long-dressed lady holding scales. She would be replaced by a mini-skirted beautiful chick whose blindfold has been pushed up to be used as a head band.1972, The Colorado Lawyer, page 26
    • hatted gentlemen and their long-dressed ladies rode on two-horse wagons1980, Calamus, page 8

Meaning of dress

Verb

dress (third-person singular simple present dresses, present participle dressing, simple past dressed, past participle dressed or (obsolete) drest)

  1. (also, figuratively, reflexive, transitive) To put clothes (or, formerly, armour) on (oneself or someone, a doll, a mannequin, etc.); to clothe.
    • He was dressed in the latest fashions.
    1. (also, figuratively, reflexive, specifically, transitive) To attire (oneself or someone) for a particular (especially formal) occasion, or in a fashionable manner.
      • [A]ll the men there shoulde dresse themselves like the poorest sorte of the people in Arcadia, having no banners, but bloudie shirtes hanged upon long staves, […]c. 1580 (date written), Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New...
  2. (transitive) To design, make, provide, or select clothes (for someone).
    • The fashion designer was proud to have dressed the queen for the charity event.
  3. (transitive) To arrange or style (someone's hair).
    • [Domitian] after his manner, with a cheerfull countenance and grieved heart, received the newes: being inwardly pricked, to think that his later counterfet triumph of Germany, wherin certain ſlaves bought for mony were attired and their haire dreſſed as captives of that country, was had in deriſion...1610, William Camden, “Romans in Britaine”, in Philémon Holland, transl., Britain, or A Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, […], London: […]...
  4. (also, figuratively, transitive) To adorn or ornament (something).
    • It was time to dress the windows for Christmas again.
    1. (also, figuratively, transitive) To arrange a display of goods in, or to decorate (a shop or shop window).

See all 40 meanings of dress

Synonyms of dressed

Words formed from dressed

Phrases with dressed

6 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with dressed

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dressed

What does dressed mean?
Dressed means having been subjected to a preparatory process or treatment; treated, prepared.
What is dressed the simple past and past participle of?
Dressed is the simple past and past participle of dress.
What part of speech is dressed?
Dressed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dressed?
Dressed is pronounced /ˈdɹɛst/.

Words near dressed in the dictionary

  1. dressage
  2. dressages
  3. dresscoat
  4. dresscoats
  5. dresscode
  6. dressed
  7. dressed down
  8. dressed herring
  9. dressed off
  10. dressed out
  11. dressed the house

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dressed (page history and authors); dress (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dressed.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dressed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dressed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.