Verb

(obsolete, reflexive, intransitive) To prepare oneself; to make ready.

*:

*:but syr Gawayns spere brak / but sir marhaus spere helde / And therwith syre Gawayne and his hors russhed doune to the erthe / And lyghtly syre Gawayne rose on his feet / and pulled out his swerd / and dressyd hym toward syr Marhaus on foote

To adorn, ornament.

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*Tennyson

*:dressing their hair with the white sea flower

*Carlyle

*:If he felt obliged to expostulate, he might have dressed his censures in a kinder form.

(nautical) To ornament (a ship) by hoisting the national colours at the peak and mastheads, and setting the jack forward; when "dressed full", the signal flags and pennants are added.

*1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.5:

*:Daily she dressed him, and did the best / His grievous hurt to guarish, that she might.

*1883 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Treasure Island) :

*:he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed.

To prepare (food) for cooking, especially by seasoning it.

To fit out with the necessary clothing; to clothe, put clothes on (something or someone).

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*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”.

To clothe oneself; to put on clothes.

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*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}

Of a man, to allow the genitals to fall to one side or other of the trousers.

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To prepare for use; to fit for any use; to render suitable for an intended purpose; to get ready.

:to dress''' leather or cloth;  to '''dress''' a garden;  to '''dress''' grain, by cleansing it;  in mining and metallurgy, to '''dress ores, by sorting and separating them

* Bible, Exodus xxx. 7

When he dresseth the lamps he shall burn incense.

*Dryden

*:three hundred horsessmoothly dressed

To prepare the surface of (a material; usually stone or lumber).

(military, ambitransitive) To arrange in exact continuity of line, as soldiers; commonly to adjust to a straight line and at proper distance; to align. Sometimes an imperative command.

:to dress the ranks

:Right, dress !

To break and train for use, as a horse or other animal.