frock
Americannoun
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a gown or dress worn by a girl or woman.
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a loose outer garment worn by peasants and workers; smock.
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a coarse outer garment with large sleeves, worn by monks.
verb (used with object)
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to provide with, or clothe in, a frock.
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to invest with priestly or clerical office.
noun
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a girl's or woman's dress
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a loose garment of several types, such as a peasant's smock
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a coarse wide-sleeved outer garment worn by members of some religious orders
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of frock
1300–50; Middle English froke < Old French froc < Frankish; compare Old Saxon, Old High German hroc coat
Explanation
Use the noun frock as an old-fashioned way to say "dress." You might wear a new pink frock to your best friend's birthday party. Typically, girls and women wear frocks, especially to formal events like weddings and fancy parties. The word frock isn't as common today as it was in the past, though it's a great way to refer to a dress. You can also call a monk's loose, long-sleeved garment a frock. The word's origin is Germanic, and it comes directly from the French word froc, "a monk's habit."
Vocabulary lists containing frock
The Catcher in the Rye
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Bless Me, Ultima
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Amal Unbound
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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.
Heading into the exhibition I was eager to see what 18th-century ribbons and laces if not frock coats and gowns would be displayed as ancillary objects.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026
Watching from the Mall, Grace Gothard, from Mitcham, made her Union Jack dress draped with the Ghanian flag while Satvinder Cubb, from Chingford made a frock made from two "Lest we forget" scarves.
From BBC • May 5, 2025
For Elsbeth’s first time at the opera, a Carolina Herrera rose-print frock ticked the “cacophony of colors and patterns” box but was still appropriate for the culturally rich setting.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 7, 2024
Their bodies were their canvases, which they bedecked in feather boas, tutus, corsets, Victorian petticoats, Edwardian frock coats, wigs, wings, headdresses, ribbons, sequins, rhinestones, satin, face paint and an abundance of glitter.
From New York Times • Apr. 12, 2024
The boy in the frock coat who’d drowned in the well.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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.
