Adjacent Words

dress down definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: censure severely or angrily; "The mother scolded the child for entering a stranger's car"; "The deputy ragged the Prime Minister"; "The customer dressed down the waiter for bringing cold soup" [syn: call on the carpet, take to task, rebuke, rag, trounce, reproof, lecture, reprimand, jaw, dress down, call down, scold, chide, berate, bawl out, remonstrate, chew out, chew up, have words, lambaste, lambast]
2: dress informally and casually; "On Fridays, employees can underdress" [syn: dress down, underdress] [ant: attire, deck out, deck up, dress up, fancy up, fig out, fig up, get up, gussy up, overdress, prink, rig out, tog out, tog up, trick out, trick up]

Merriam Webster's

verb Date: 1852 transitive verb to reprove severely intransitive verb to dress casually especially for reasons of fashion

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you dress down, you wear clothes that are less smart than usual. She dresses down in baggy clothes to avoid hordes of admirers. PHRASAL VERB: V P

Moby Thesaurus

call down, come down on, flax, give a dressing-down, give it to, hide, jump all over, jump on, larrup, lather, leather, lick, paddle, speak to, talk to, tan, tell off, trim, wallop, welt, whale