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evening dress

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noun

formal or semiformal attire for evening wear.
Compare morning dress.

Origin of evening dress

First recorded in 1790–1800
Also called evening clothes.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for evening dress

formal, formalwear, soup-and-fish

Examples from the Web for evening dress

Historical Examples of evening dress

  • Stuart, in evening-dress, was standing before the mirror, and polishing his eyeglass.

    Twos and Threes

    G. B. Stern

  • He threw off his hat and overcoat, thereby showing that he was still in his evening-dress.

    Vendetta

    Marie Corelli

  • And then mother fretted a little that I had no evening-dress ready.

    Esther

    Rosa Nouchette Carey

  • Only my saddle-bag, and I have no evening-dress with me, else I should be glad.

  • To think that it is eighteen months since I wore an evening-dress!

    The Daughters of a Genius

    Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

British Dictionary definitions for evening dress

evening dress

noun

attire for wearing at a formal occasion during the evening, esp (for men) a dinner jacket and black tie, or (less commonly, for women) a floor-length gown
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012