dresses

Noun

dress (countable and uncountable, plural dresses)

1. An item of clothing (usually worn by a woman or young girl) which both covers the upper part of the body and includes a skirt below the waist.
   • Amy and Mary looked very pretty in their dresses.

   Synonyms:

   frock

2. (archaic outside of India) An item of outer clothing or set of such clothes (worn by people of all sexes) which is generally decorative and appropriate for a particular occasion, profession, etc.
   • I have been thinking, George, of changing our travelling dreſſes in the morning. I am grown confoundedly aſhamed of mine.1773, [Oliver] Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. […], London: […] F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, Act II, page 23
   1. (India, broadly, archaic outside of India) Any item of clothing, or an outfit.
      • He wore a bright orange dress to the office yesterday.
3. Apparel or clothing, especially when appropriate for a particular occasion, profession, etc.
   • military dress
4. (archaic) The act of putting on clothes, especially fashionable ones, or for a particular (especially formal) occasion.
5. (broadly) The external covering of an animal (for example, the feathers of a bird) or an object.
   • When the adults [i.e., birds] of both sexes have a distinct winter and summer plumage, whether or not the male differs from the female, the young resemble the adults of both sexes in their winter dress or much more rarely in their summer dress, or they resemble the females alone; or the young may...1871, Charles Darwin, “Birds—concluded”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part II (Sexual Selection), page 187

See all 40 meanings of dress