Word.ws English Dictionary

wardrobe malfunction

wardrobe malfunction noun: an accidental counterpart of indecent exposure caused by a fault in someone's clothing (especially that of a performer) or by an error made while changing clothes.

Noun

wardrobe malfunction (plural wardrobe malfunctions)

  1. (euphemistic) An accidental counterpart of indecent exposure caused by a fault in someone's clothing (especially that of a performer) or by an error made while changing clothes.
    • Monaco, a 23-year-old Argentinian seeded No. 23, survived the most unlikely wardrobe malfunction to save a match point and win a third-set tiebreaker, 8-6.2007 September 4, Kathleen McElroy, “But Wait! Djokovic Is Still Playing”, in New York Times Straight Sets, retrieved 17 Apr 2021

Forms of wardrobe malfunction

pluralwardrobe malfunctions

Origin of wardrobe malfunction

An Americanism, coined by singer Justin Timberlake in 2004 to describe the incident during Super Bowl XXXVIII in which singer Janet Jackson's right breast was bared.

Words formed from wardrobe malfunction

Questions about wardrobe malfunction

What does wardrobe malfunction mean?
Wardrobe malfunction means an accidental counterpart of indecent exposure caused by a fault in someone's clothing (especially that of a performer) or by an error made while changing clothes.
What part of speech is wardrobe malfunction?
Wardrobe malfunction is a noun.
What is the plural of wardrobe malfunction?
The plural of wardrobe malfunction is wardrobe malfunctions.

Words near wardrobe malfunction in the dictionary

  1. wardrives
  2. wardriving
  3. wardrobe
  4. wardrobe beetle
  5. wardrobe beetles
  6. wardrobe malfunction
  7. wardrobe malfunctioner
  8. wardrobe malfunctioners
  9. wardrobe malfunctions
  10. wardrobe mistress
  11. wardrobe mistresses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wardrobe malfunction (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-wardrobe malfunction.wav.

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