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
-
has appareledperfect
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has apparelledperfect
-
am apparelingprogressive
-
am apparellingprogressive
-
are apparelingprogressive
-
are apparellingprogressive
-
is apparelingprogressive
-
is apparellingprogressive
-
have been apparelingperfect progressive
-
have been apparellingperfect progressive
-
has been apparelingperfect progressive
-
has been apparellingperfect progressive
Past
-
appareledsimple
-
apparelledsimple
-
had appareledperfect
-
had apparelledperfect
-
was apparelingprogressive
-
was apparellingprogressive
-
were apparelingprogressive
-
were apparellingprogressive
-
had been apparelingperfect progressive
-
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:
Good Good Golf sells apparel, but it also has a digital-media brand and YouTube channel that features golf challenges and lifestyle golf content.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
The apparel retailer’s sales rose 10% to $1.66 billion in the second quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
This morning, he’s in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, at the flagship store for On, the sleek Swiss apparel brand for whom he’s both an investor and spiritual embodiment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
The China-founded company known for ultracheap, trendy apparel is offering 280 million class B shares for 47.60 Hong Kong dollars to HK$49.50 each.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Cluny’s personal armorer put the final touches to his Chief’s war apparel.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
The Clean Clothes Campaign said it was braced for further cases of union suppression across the apparels industry.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 16, 2020
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
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
Where joy and delight and beauty were, there he knew by sure signs were the parts of the mystery, the glorious apparels of the heavenly vestments.
From The Secret Glory by Arthur Machen
There is continual mention in the records of those times of offerings of embroideries and other Church apparels.
From Needlework As Art by Marianne Margaret Compton Cust, Viscountess Alford
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
The king’s three officers enter, richly appareled, their figures showing in strong relief against the red sky.
From Jeremiah A Drama in Nine Scenes by Stefan Zweig
First of all was Columbus, richly appareled, with the banner of Spain in his hand.
From A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. by Clayton Edwards
And as soon as they were come in, they saw Indian men and women appareled like Spaniards, whom they asked in what country they were?
From A Narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida published at Evora in 1557 by A Gentleman of Elvas [pseud.]
Each evening found him, washed and appareled, at the mission, furnishing a decorous bass undertone to the hymns, looked on with approval by the missioner and his helpers.
From Those Who Smiled And Eleven Other Stories by Perceval Gibbon
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
At either end were ranged round guineas in wicked little heaps, and along the borders stood serried packs of cards, shorn of their meaner numbers as becomes the apparelled duel of picket.
From The Passionate Elopement by Compton MacKenzie
And there were twenty damsels there, apparelled in green, and they wore golden chaplets on their tresses, and were all very noble ladies, comely, and fair to look on.
From The Book of the Duke of True Lovers by Christin? de Pisan
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
The kind doctor was still by during the apparelling, or the attempt at it.
From Rattlin the Reefer by Frederick Marryat
They were always apparelling themselves in gaudy dresses from Paris, and going away to balls, leaving their meritorious little sister weeping at home in their every-day finery.
From Cobwebs from an Empty Skull by Ambrose Bierce
"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
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
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.
