gown
Americannoun
-
gowns
plural
-
a woman's dress or robe, especially one that is full-length.
- Synonyms:
- frock
-
a loose, flowing outer garment in any of various forms, worn by a man or woman as distinctive of office, profession, or status.
an academic gown.
-
the student and teaching body in a university or college town.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
any of various outer garments, such as a woman's elegant or formal dress, a dressing robe, or a protective garment, esp one worn by surgeons during operations
-
a loose wide garment indicating status, such as worn by academics
-
the members of a university as opposed to the other residents of the university town Compare town
verb
Synonym Usage
See dress.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of gown
1300–50; Middle English goune < Old French < Late Latin gunna fur or leather garment
Explanation
A gown is a formal dress. When your date to a party or dance is wearing a tuxedo, you'll probably want to wear a gown. There are many different kinds of gowns, including ball gowns, wedding gowns, and evening gowns. All of them are worn primarily by women on formal occasions. It was once common to call any one-piece woman's garment a gown, while now it's more often called a dress. The source of gown is the Old French goune, "robe, coat, or down," with the Latin root gunna, "hide or skin."
Vocabulary lists containing gown
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:
When Bertha’s down-to-earth sister, Monica, threatens to ruin the overall aesthetic with a dowdy frock, some light sabotage leads Monica to accept Bertha’s previously worn Season 1 gown.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Last week, the actress Anne Hathaway attended the London premiere of “The Odyssey” wearing a flowy blue gown from Dior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
"We love love," she wrote, along with a selfie of herself in a slinky black Prada gown.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
He wore an all-white suit in the video, while his wife, singer Ashanti, donned a sparkling gown.
From Barron's ● Jul. 4, 2026
Michelle wore a snug red wedding dress, and Georgie definitely looked prettier in her gown than Felix had looked.
From "Millionaires for the Month" by Stacey McAnulty
The company has already been ordered to repay £148m to the government after the High Court found it had breached a contract to supply millions of surgical gowns.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
In the meantime, the AI gowns and Easter-egg hunts will have to suffice.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
At a makeshift morgue in the quake-hit Venezuelan port of La Guaira, forensic experts in blue gowns and caps picked their way through dozens of bodies laid out in bags under the sun.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
Equally dazzling is a large display case containing many of Michelle Obama’s most elegant gowns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026
In the picture, Shanna modeled it in a bridal store filled with other white gowns.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
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.
