Word.ws English Dictionary

emperor's new clothes

emperor's new clothes noun: something obvious and embarrassing that is politely ignored or that goes unacknowledged.

Noun

the emperor's new clothes pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Something obvious and embarrassing that is politely ignored or that goes unacknowledged.
    • Marks & Spencer announced a 19% fall in annual profits on Tuesday.2005 May 26, “Is an M&S suit the emperor's new clothes?”, in The Guardian, UK

emperor's new clothes meaning in Vietnamese

emperor's new clothes in Vietnamese

something obvious and embarrassing that is politely ignored
bộ quần áo mới của hoàng đế

Synonyms of emperor's new clothes

Origin of emperor's new clothes

After The Emperor's New Clothes, a tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.

Questions about emperor's new clothes

What does emperor's new clothes mean?
Emperor's new clothes means something obvious and embarrassing that is politely ignored or that goes unacknowledged.
What is emperor's new clothes in Vietnamese?
Emperor's new clothes in Vietnamese is bộ quần áo mới của hoàng đế. See Emperor's new clothes meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is emperor's new clothes?
Emperor's new clothes is a noun.

Words near emperor's new clothes in the dictionary

  1. emperor scorpions
  2. emperor shrimp
  3. emperor shrimps
  4. emperor tamarin
  5. emperor tamarins
  6. emperor's new clothes
  7. emperorism
  8. emperorist
  9. emperorists
  10. emperorlike
  11. emperorly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: emperor's new clothes (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-au-emperor's new clothes.ogg.

Cite this entry: “emperor's new clothes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/emperor%27s_new_clothes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.