Word.ws English Dictionary

old gown

old gown noun: smuggled tea.

Noun

old gown (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete, slang) smuggled tea
    • […] their horses loaded with 150 to 200 lbs. of “old gown” (smuggled tea) […]1879, John Owens, Plain Papers Relating to the Excise Branch of the Inland Revenue Department, From 1621 to 1878, page 444
    • […] at this time there was a very general leaning towards cheap brandy or tobacco; "old gown," as smuggled tea was called, was in general request, […]1883, S. William Beck, Gloves, Their Annals and Associations, page 165

Questions about old gown

What does old gown mean?
Old gown means smuggled tea.
What part of speech is old gown?
Old gown is a noun.

Words near old gown in the dictionary

  1. old girls
  2. Old Glory
  3. old gold
  4. old golds
  5. Old Gooseberry
  6. old gown
  7. Old Gray Lady
  8. Old Greek
  9. Old Greenwich
  10. Old Grevillia
  11. old guard

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: old gown (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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