tuxedo
Americannoun
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Also called dinner jacket. a man's jacket for semiformal evening dress, traditionally of black or dark-blue color and characteristically having satin or grosgrain facing on the lapels.
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the complete semiformal outfit, including this jacket, dark trousers, often with silk stripes down the sides, a bow tie, and usually a cummerbund.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tuxedo
1890–95, short for Tuxedo coat, after country club at Tuxedo Park, N.Y.
Explanation
Use the noun tuxedo to describe the dressy black suit that many men wear when they get married. It's not prom night without one of these formal jackets for men, which take their name from Tuxedo Park, New York, near New York City. The place name tuxedo, according to one line of etymological inquiry, is from an Algonquian word for "wolf," p'tuksit, while other scholars guess that it simply means "crooked river," p'tuck-sepo. Either way, a tuxedo today can also be called a dinner jacket or even the slangy "monkey suit," just for fun.
Vocabulary lists containing tuxedo
English Words Derived from Indigenous Languages of the Americas
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Aquatic, Waddle, and Plumage: Penguin Parlance
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Prom Time
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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:
They affixed headshot cutouts of their parents from photos and placed them above paper cutouts of a wedding dress and a tuxedo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Among the pieces available were a vintage chest, tables, and chair, antique mirrors, hand-knotted rugs, a striped fabric tuxedo sofa, upholstered wing back chairs, “lots of fun lamps and chandeliers,” and several leather chairs.
From MarketWatch ● May 18, 2026
My cats, Cutie and Socks — one’s a tabby and the other is a tuxedo cat — wake me up by mewing and walking on me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2026
Anthony Vaccarello's collection featured various versions of the classic tuxedo suit, silicone-coated lingerie dresses and faux fur coats.
From BBC ● Mar. 10, 2026
It’s a clip of him dressed in a flawless tuxedo, leaving a charity ball with a young woman on his arm, his coat draped around her shoulders.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
But for grooms, adjusting tuxedos and suits for weight loss is much easier to do.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 25, 2026
Sequined dresses mix with simple jeans, and tuxedos are sometimes worn with work boots.
From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026
Delighting in the performance and applauding from the floor pit are gender-bending members of the new bohemia, alongside champagne-sipping deputies in tuxedos of the Berlin elite.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2025
While kids will be the most enthusiastic, a dinner recently held at the facility that had adults dressed in tuxedos and dresses resulted in them trying out the exhibits and acting like teenagers again.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2025
At least I finally get the point of tuxedos.
From "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli
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.
