frock
Americannoun
-
a gown or dress worn by a girl or woman.
-
a loose outer garment worn by peasants and workers; smock.
-
a coarse outer garment with large sleeves, worn by monks.
verb (used with object)
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frocks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
frocked,
past participle, past
-
frocking
present participle
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to provide with, or clothe in, a frock.
-
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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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frocksimple
-
frockssimple
-
have frockedperfect
-
has frockedperfect
-
am frockingprogressive
-
are frockingprogressive
-
is frockingprogressive
-
have been frockingperfect progressive
-
has been frockingperfect progressive
Past
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frockedsimple
-
had frockedperfect
-
was frockingprogressive
-
were frockingprogressive
-
had been frockingperfect progressive
Future
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.
See Examples For:
After spotting the moss green, knee-length frock with matching bolero jacket in the window of her local J.J.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Astrid’s bespoke sunflower frock came from Atwood’s treasure trove of materials, and there was no room for error.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2024
Given the “Garden of Time” theme and the last-minute nature of her frock, could we be in for a living garment in the form of flowers?
From BBC ● May 6, 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
One of the frock coats pointed, and then another, and Lizzie knew where they were looking.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
Mizrahi was, at one time, one of the foremost purveyors of these frolicsome frocks.
From Salon ● Sep. 5, 2026
Emma Stone has opted for stunning, form-fitting frocks with plenty of embellishment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2024
While living in the Shelbourne Hotel, she took on roles very different from her wartime escapades, waitressing in cafes and selling frocks in Harrods, before taking a job as a cleaner on a passenger ship.
From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2024
Aksu used lots of lace, crochet, ruffles and intricate embellishments on suits and frocks.
From Reuters ● Sep. 15, 2023
Shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand, I could make out eight black men in fleece-white frocks sitting in the jeeps.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
Her majesty was frocked in a delicately flared dress of lime, lemon, purple silk — a spring- season Popsicle — which the 92-year-old monarch managed to pull off.
From Washington Post ● May 19, 2018
The Australian actress - who was up for an award for her work in Lion - frocked up in a green Gucci gown adorned with feathered parrot heads.
From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2017
Laura Ford's neatly frocked little girl paddling forlornly in her wellies has her head shrouded in a looming plaster cloud.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 20, 2010
Last week Tijuana was parading a newfound reputation as a respectable, commercially solid city, frocked out in its Sunday best for a three-week international trade show called Mexpo.
From Time Magazine Archive
In one book we see quaintly frocked and pantaletted girls and much buttoned boys in Sunday-school.
From Forgotten Books of the American Nursery A History of the Development of the American Story-Book by Rosalie Vrylina Halsey
A universal stuff woven in New Hampshire by the Scotch-Irish linen-weavers who settled there, and who influenced husbandry and domestic manufactures and customs all around them, was what was known as striped frocking.
From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle
Many boys grew to manhood never wearing, except on Sundays, any kind of coat save a long, loose, shapeless jacket or smock of this striped frocking, known everywhere as a long-short.
From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle
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.
