noun
-
(often plural) an article of clothing
-
outer covering
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of garment
1300–50; Middle English garnement < Old French garniment, equivalent to garni ( r ) to garnish + -ment -ment
Explanation
A garment is a piece of clothing. The area of New York City where clothes are manufactured is known as the Garment District. Derived from the French word for "equipment," garment is a somewhat generic term you can use when the specific kind of clothing you're describing is not the point. A dress, for example, is a dress, and pants are pants. They are not the same thing, unless you refer to them both as garments, in which case they are the same thing.
Vocabulary lists containing garment
100 SAT Words Beginning with "G"
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Drama
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Vazquez made frequent trips to the Garment District with his classmates, where they traded swatches and helped each other find the best materials, often calling their instructors from inside fabric stores for guidance.
From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2026
But US orders "remained static", said Mohiuddin Rubel, former head of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, noting that some new factories had opened.
From Barron's • Feb. 1, 2026
Given that this “Craft in America” double feature is partly about manufacturing and American entrepreneurship, it starts in New York, aptly, in the all-but-vanished Garment District.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025
Garment sales from Kenya have also been hit this year by the 10% tariff introduced by the Trump administration earlier this year.
From BBC • Sep. 30, 2025
History did not record precisely what Fannie said to her fellow seamstresses to convince them to organize and join Ladies’ Local 67 of the United Garment Workers of America.
From "Fannie Never Flinched" by Mary Cronk Farrell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
