apparel
Americannoun
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clothing, especially outerwear; garments; attire; raiment.
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anything that decorates or covers.
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superficial appearance; aspect; guise.
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Nautical. the masts, sails, anchor, etc., used to equip a vessel.
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Ecclesiastical. a piece of embroidery, usually oblong, on certain vestments, especially on the alb or amice.
verb (used with object)
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apparels,
present (3rd person singular)
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appareled,
past participle, past
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apparelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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appareling,
present participle
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apparelling
present participle (especially British)
noun
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something that covers or adorns, esp outer garments or clothing
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nautical a vessel's gear and equipment
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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apparelsimple
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apparelssimple
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have appareledperfect
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have apparelledperfect
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has appareledperfect
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has apparelledperfect
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am apparelingprogressive
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am apparellingprogressive
-
are apparelingprogressive
-
are apparellingprogressive
-
is apparelingprogressive
-
is apparellingprogressive
-
have been apparelingperfect progressive
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have been apparellingperfect progressive
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has been apparelingperfect progressive
-
has been apparellingperfect progressive
Past
-
appareledsimple
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apparelledsimple
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had appareledperfect
-
had apparelledperfect
-
was apparelingprogressive
-
was apparellingprogressive
-
were apparelingprogressive
-
were apparellingprogressive
-
had been apparelingperfect progressive
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had been apparellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of apparel
1200–50; Middle English appareillen < Old French apareillier to make fit, fit out < Vulgar Latin *appariculāre, equivalent to ap- ap- 1 + *paricul ( us ) a fit ( see par 1 -cule 1) + -ā- thematic vowel + -re infinitive suffix
Explanation
Apparel is just another word for what you wear. Hopefully the apparel you wear to work — suits and heels — is very different from the apparel you wear on the weekends — pajama pants and bunny slippers. The noun apparel got its start from the Latin apparare, meaning to “prepare, make ready,” or ad-particulare, meaning “to put things together.” In the mid 13th century it evolved into a verb meaning “to equip.” It wasn’t until the next century that people began to use apparel as both a verb meaning “to attire” and as a noun meaning garments or clothing. Said 17th century British writer Thomas Fuller, “…Apparel shapes: but it's money that finishes the man.”
Vocabulary lists containing apparel
Christmas Carol Vocab: A Lyrical Lexicon
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Words for Carolers
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Let's Go Caroling, List 1
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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.
See Examples For:
"It is a huge issue and it's also a complex issue," says Joanna Czutkowna, director of 5thread and a doctoral researcher in sports apparel and the circular economy.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
Last month, Hugo Boss appointed Frasers’ Chief Executive Michael Murray as the next chairman of its supervisory board, weeks after the U.K. group achieved a near-majority ownership in the German apparel company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
Food supply chains, motor vehicles and parts, household furnishings, apparel, recreational goods and some nondurable goods are among the categories most likely to experience “meaningful spillovers” from higher diesel prices, they said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
Brown and his Black Pyramid Co. apparel business, a co-defendant, argued in their motion filed in August that the award to Patricia Avila was “excessive and unsupported by evidence.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
“One bedroom above an apparel shop,” said Alvin Hooks.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
It is also adding to fears among labour rights campaigners that Covid-19 is providing cover for an industry-wide suppression of workers’ voices across the apparels industry.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 16, 2020
The Clean Clothes Campaign said it was braced for further cases of union suppression across the apparels industry.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 16, 2020
India unit and Mandhana Industries Ltd., an Indian maker of apparels with 5,000 employees in Mumbai and Bangalore, will give workers the option of taking the afternoon off.
From BusinessWeek ● Mar. 30, 2011
He hurried us off to the robing-rooms, and made us put on monastic and priestly garments over our several apparels.
From Red Axe by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
Fear ye God and take heed lest forms and apparels debar you from recognizing Him.
From Selections From the Writings of the Báb by Báb
In contrast to the usual portrayals, Barbara Flynn’s matronly Mary is as confident and imperious as her cousin, if not nearly as well appareled.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2018
By twelve he was appareled in a neat gray suit and clean linen, and feeling very much himself.
From The Man from Jericho by Edwin Carlile Litsey
After a short confinement there, the Duke by royal order was delivered over to the custody of Sir James Tyler and another knight; and, "appareled in a piled black cloak," was escorted to Salisbury.
From The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West by William Henry Hamilton Rogers
If she were splendidly appareled, that seemed the best and only dress for her.
From Francezka by Molly Elliot Seawell
Then by that happy, blissful day, More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have cast off their rags of clay, And walk appareled fresh like me.
From Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul by James Mudge
As a child, his world had been "apparelled in celestial light," but no longer.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2021
The veteran Robert Warwick is properly apparelled and deep-voiced as Chandler.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the middle of it there was a green silk canopy borne on four spears by four knights gorgeously apparelled.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
And those are for my pretty orphans—our pretty orphans, Lilly darling, twenty-four in the West Refuge, twenty-four in the East; the Easterns are apparelled in red, the Westerns in blue.
From A Life For a Love A Novel by L. T. Meade
After a magnificent banquet in the common council chamber, above the assize court, a princely masque of gods and goddesses, richly apparelled, was presented before her majesty.
From Rambles in an Old City comprising antiquarian, historical, biographical and political associations by S. S. Madders
Wordsworth idealized newborns, who he said entered life “trailing clouds of glory” and appareling all they saw in “celestial light.”
From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2013
The day came at last, and at ten Mrs. Dillingham entered the grand drawing-room in her queenly appareling.
From Sevenoaks by J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) Holland
Pale and hard the face rose from this somber and gorgeous appareling.
From The Secret of Lonesome Cove by Samuel Hopkins Adams
For as Apollo each eve doth devise A new appareling for western skies; So every eve, nay every spendthrift hour Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.
From Endymion A Poetic Romance by John Keats
Elsie went out to buy a gift for Jacqueline, a bit of fine apparelling which she had coveted from the moment she knew Jacqueline should be a bride.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 by Various
Jeannie's maid must have been a first-rate hand at throwing, if by that simple process she produced in a quarter of an hour that exquisite and finished piece of apparelling which appeared at half-past eight.
From Daisy's Aunt by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
But Wat, dear Wat, will you not put off your gay apparelling and take a night at the cartes with us at home.
From The Men of the Moss-Hags Being a history of adventure taken from the papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
Then, having finished apparelling us and still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans.
From The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt
"It is time that I were attending to my own apparelling, which, in looking at thee, I quite forgot," said the widow, rising, and leaving the apartment.
From The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance by John Turvill Adams
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.
