chemise
Americannoun
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a woman's loose-fitting, shirtlike undergarment.
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(in women's fashions) a dress designed to hang straight from the shoulders and fit loosely at the waist, sometimes more tightly at the hip.
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a revetment for an earth embankment.
noun
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an unwaisted loose-fitting dress hanging straight from the shoulders
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a loose shirtlike undergarment
Etymology
Origin of chemise
before 1050; Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French: shirt < Late Latin camīsa linen undergarment, shirt; replacing Middle English kemes, Old English cemes < Late Latin camīsa
Explanation
A chemise is a simple, loose-fitting dress. If you're heading to the beach, you might throw a chemise on over your bathing suit. Use the word chemise for an unstructured garment without any defined waist — think of the dresses flappers wore in the 1920s, which hung straight down from their shoulders. It's just as common to call a nightgown or a slip — a type of undergarment worn beneath a dress — a chemise. The word comes from Old French, meaning "tunic," and was originally used for the tunics worn by soldiers beneath their armor.
Vocabulary lists containing chemise
The Detective's Assistant
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Lifeboat 12
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So Far from the Bamboo Grove
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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.
The bustles underpin the distinctive chemise à la reine that was popularized by fashion icon Marie Antoinette, with its cloud of white ruffles around a low neckline, sashed at the waist.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2025
A 36-year-old Algiers native, with a prodigious beard and an ankle-length orange chemise covering his giant build, Omar was well acquainted with the discrepancy between his country’s size and its reputation.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 22, 2022
We were very true to the layering, of having a liner underneath the corset, and the corset, and the corset cover, and the chemise, and then the outfit.”
From New York Times ● May 29, 2018
So my cardinal association with the team and its traditions is not the chemise, but the nausea.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 10, 2015
She wore a one-piece white chemise, and curtsied to him as he opened the door, and smiled, shyly.
From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
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.
