wardrobe
Americannoun
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a stock of clothes or costumes, as of a person or of a theatrical company.
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a piece of furniture for holding clothes, now usually a tall, upright case fitted with hooks, shelves, etc.
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a room or place in which to keep clothes or costumes.
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the department of a royal or other great household charged with the care of wearing apparel.
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a department in a motion-picture or television studio in charge of supplying and maintaining costumes.
Report to wardrobe right after lunch.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a tall closet or cupboard, with a rail or hooks on which to hang clothes
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the total collection of articles of clothing belonging to one person
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the collection of costumes belonging to a theatre or theatrical company
Etymology
Origin of wardrobe
1250–1300; Middle English warderobe < Anglo-French. See ward (v.), robe
Explanation
All of the clothes in your closet make up your wardrobe. If you're tired of your wardrobe, it just might be time to go shopping. From the words warder, meaning “to protect”, and robe, meaning a “piece of clothing,” wardrobe originally meant an entire room where a person's clothing was stored. Nowadays, most people don’t have an entire room for their clothes, so the word wardrobe has downsized to just a large cabinet, or the clothing itself. A wardrobe can also be the costumes (or the costume department) of a theater company or movie.
Vocabulary lists containing wardrobe
The Ottoman Empire: Furniture Words
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100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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Academy Awards, List 5
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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.
Just like the legendary actress's wardrobe, Dior's show late Wednesday exuded glamour and female empowerment.
From Barron's • May 14, 2026
Grenier: We didn’t wrap in time to go home, so I pulled wardrobe aside, “I’m gonna wear my outfit to this party.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2026
That pricey pad is also where the “Gossip Girl” alum flaunts her fashion-forward wardrobe on Instagram, and from those pretty pics, we’ve gotten a peek at the rustic-cool spaces.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 30, 2026
When Tammy Hine uprooted her entire life and moved to the UK's most remote inhabited island, she may have misjudged her wardrobe choices.
From BBC • Apr. 4, 2026
Most of his wardrobe, with the exception of a few favorite T-shirts, was secondhand.
From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
