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Synonyms

evening dress

American  

noun

  1. formal or semiformal attire for evening wear.


evening dress British  

noun

  1. 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

Etymology

Origin of evening dress

First recorded in 1790–1800

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:

She said she used to attend some classes “wearing my evening dress under my Burberry, with my diamonds in my pocket so I could go out afterward.”

From The Wall Street Journal Feb. 20, 2026

Items included the "perfect" white cotton t-shirt, a striped blue "boyfriend" shirt and white linen trousers, as well as more formal items such as a black wool blazer and a full-length, ivory-coloured evening dress.

From BBC Mar. 24, 2025

Technically, they should only be worn with full evening dress, known as white tie, but as that hardly exists any longer … oh, go ahead.

From Washington Post Dec. 21, 2021

There were psychedelic swirls of orange and brown in a pantsuit and an evening dress with a high slit.

From Seattle Times Feb. 25, 2021

She was wearing a low-cut orange satin evening dress, and at the peak of her upswept hair there was a large artificial orchid.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

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