dress

dress1 [ dres ] verb ***

1. ) intransitive to put on clothes. This verb is common in writing, but when you are speaking it is more usual to say that you get dressed:

It only took her ten minutes to shower and dress.

a ) transitive to put clothes on someone:

We wash the children and dress them for school.

dress yourself: Our youngest boy can already dress himself.

b ) intransitive to put on clothes of a particular type:

dress in: He tends to dress in dark colors.

dress as: The nurses had decided to dress as clowns for Halloween.

c ) transitive to choose or design the clothes that someone wears:

He dresses many of Europe's most glamorous women.

d ) intransitive dress for to put on clothes that are appropriate for a particular occasion or event:

I would suggest that you dress for cold weather.

They dressed for dinner every night (=put on formal clothes for the evening meal).

2. ) transitive to clean an injury and cover it with a piece of soft cloth called a dressing

3. ) transitive to add flavor to a salad by putting a mixture of liquids such as oil and lemon juice on it. The mixture is called a dressing.

4. ) transitive to prepare something such as a chicken or CRAB (=an ocean animal) by cleaning it and taking out the parts that you cannot eat

dress someone's hair FORMAL

to make someone's hair look especially attractive by arranging it in a style and putting decorations in it

dress (up) to the nines

to put on extremely fashionable or formal clothes, usually to go to a special event

,dress `down phrasal verb

1. ) intransitive to wear clothes that are more informal than the clothes you usually wear

2. ) transitive dress someone down to speak in an angry way to someone who has done something wrong

,dress `up phrasal verb

1. ) intransitive to put on clothes that make you look like someone else, for fun:

All children love dressing up.

dress up as: They had dressed up as princes and princesses.

a ) transitive dress someone up used about other people:

For her birthday party, they dressed her up as a ballerina.

2. ) intransitive to put on clothes that are more formal than the clothes you usually wear:

Jonah had obviously made an effort to dress up for the occasion.

3. ) transitive to make something seem more impressive than it really is:

He tries to dress it up, but he's basically a waiter.

dress

dress 2 [ dres ] noun ***

1. ) count a piece of clothing that covers a woman's body and part of her legs:

a blue cotton dress

I'd never seen her in a dress before.

2. ) uncount the clothes that someone usually wears:

He has an unusual style of dress.

a ) the clothes that are typical of a particular place, time in history, or occasion:

The children were wearing traditional Norwegian dress.

They performed the play in Victorian dress.