wardrobe
Americannoun
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wardrobes
plural
-
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.
-
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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
She has a cat, siblings who often pop in, and parents who are frequently enlisted for wardrobe emergencies.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
Some brides are bringing extra dresses in case of guest-related wardrobe violations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Craft your new denim wardrobe by visiting Agolde’s first-ever flagship store at Melrose Place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
Naomi’s best friend helped with all of the wardrobe because she’s a fashion girlie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Betsie stood me in front of the wardrobe mirror and gave me a lecture.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
The police move from room to room, by torchlight - there's no power - opening wardrobes and lifting mattresses.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Narratively, their characters — a heroine and her nemesis — shouldn’t dress as though they could swap wardrobes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026
Now they are expected to change the way people dress as they lose weight, with GLP-1 users potentially spending billions more each year to refresh their wardrobes, Bernstein analysts said.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 20, 2026
Along with using the service for occasions such as weddings and vacations, users also update their daily wardrobes without the cost and commitment of making a purchase, executives say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 25, 2026
Somewhere, Cinna and Portia will be creating our wardrobes for the public appearances.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
Before taking part in the ceremony, he’s wardrobed in “traditional” attire, which the British have crafted based on Indian drawings.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 28, 2018
A woman dressed as a sailboat stood proudly on one side; several others wardrobed like giant Gerbera daisies — their lean green-suited bodies topped with giant multi-petal hats.
From Washington Post
“I didn’t know how it worked at all,” Mr. Sessa said of celebrity dressing — in strategic terms, a wardrobing “Game of Thrones.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2024
Not that he thinks the solution lies in wardrobing.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 16, 2023
Aside from wardrobing Tom Cruise in “Vanilla Sky” as well as providing clothes for several “Mission: Impossible” and James Bond movies, Varvatos has largely stayed out of Hollywood until now.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2019
Others accept behavior such as "wardrobing" — in which customers buy an item, use it and then return it — as a hazard of doing business.
From Chicago Tribune ● Feb. 2, 2014
Her name recognition soared after she spent a season wardrobing contestants for the hit TV reality show Star Factory.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
