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Frill vs Dress - What's the difference?

frill | dress |

As nouns the difference between frill and dress

is that frill is a strip of pleated material used as decoration or trim; a ruffle while dress is (countable) an item of clothing (usually worn by a woman or young girl) which both covers the upper part of the body and includes skirts below the waist.

As verbs the difference between frill and dress

is that frill is to make something into a frill while dress is (obsolete|reflexive|intransitive) to prepare oneself; to make ready.

frill

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A strip of pleated material used as decoration or trim; a ruffle.
  • (photography) A wrinkled edge to a film.
  • A luxury.
  • Something extraneous added for effect.
  • *
  • Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […]  Frills , ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.

    See also

    * jabot

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make something into a frill.
  • To become wrinkled.
  • To provide or decorate with a frill or frills; to turn back in crimped plaits.
  • to frill a cap
  • To shake or shiver as with cold.
  • The hawk frills .
    (Johnson)

    Derived terms

    * frilly * no frills * turkey frills

    dress

    English

    Noun

  • (countable) An item of clothing (usually worn by a woman or young girl) which both covers the upper part of the body and includes skirts below the waist.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=2 citation , passage=Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety.  She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.}}
  • (uncountable) Apparel, clothing.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=6 citation , passage=Even in an era when individuality in dress is a cult, his clothes were noticeable. He was wearing a hard hat of the low round kind favoured by hunting men, and with it a black duffle-coat lined with white.}}
  • The system of furrows on the face of a millstone.
  • A dress rehearsal.
  • Derived terms

    * dress code * dress rehearsal * dress shirt * nightdress * wedding dress

    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.
  • :
  • *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).
  • :
  • *{{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.
  • :
  • *
  • , 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.
  • :
  • 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.
  • Synonyms

    * clothe * (clothe oneself) get dressed * (prepare the surface of) * bandage, put a bandage on, put a dressing on

    Antonyms

    * strip, undress * (clothe oneself) disrobe, get undressed, strip, undress

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Statistics

    *

    Noun

    (nb-noun-m1) (clothing) a suit (either formal wear, or leisure or sports wear )

    References

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