Word.ws English Dictionary

dressing-up

dressing-up noun: the act or practice of putting on fancy clothes or a costume.

Noun

dressing-up (uncountable)

  1. The act or practice of putting on fancy clothes or a costume.
    • “But since then I’ve remembered what the young gentlemen”—John and Lawrence were still the “young gentlemen” to Dorcas—“call the ‘dressing-up box.’ It’s up in the front attic, sir. A great chest, full of old clothes and fancy dresses, and what not.”1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 113
    • It is a very good idea to have a large box of discarded clothes and brightly coloured pieces of material handy during Christmas for the youngsters to use for "dressing-up."1927 December 22, The Brisbane Courier, page 17, column 4

Questions about dressing-up

What does dressing-up mean?
Dressing-up means the act or practice of putting on fancy clothes or a costume.
What part of speech is dressing-up?
Dressing-up is a noun.

Words near dressing-up in the dictionary

  1. dressing-gowns
  2. dressing-room
  3. dressing-rooms
  4. dressing-table
  5. dressing-tables
  6. dressing-up
  7. dressingroom
  8. dressingrooms
  9. dressings
  10. dressings-down
  11. dressish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dressing-up (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.

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