Idioms

dress as

dress (up) as (someone or something)

1. To wear clothing or accessories that cause one to look like someone or something else. My daughter plans to dress up as Cinderella for Halloween. When we go to the concert, my girls want to dress up as Taylor Swift from all the different eras of her career. Hey, new kid, you can't dress as a senior—only seniors wear the dark gray kilts!
2. To outfit someone or something in clothing or accessories. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is used between "dress" and "up" or "as" (if "up" is not being used). I have a friend who really enjoys dressing her dachshund as different historical figures. She practically dresses her daughter as a porcelain doll! How is that kid supposed to have any fun in ruffly dresses all the time? I'm going to dress my daughter up as Cinderella for Halloween because that's her favorite princess.
See also: dress
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

dress (up) as someone or something

to dress in the manner of someone or something. l am going to dress up as a ghost for Halloween. Larry will dress up as the pumpkin from Cinderella.
See also: dress
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
See also:
References in periodicals archive
To make sure that you look classy and not trashy, incorporate accessories that give the dress a more elegant and luxurious feel.
But people are look-look ing to buy a dress as an investment so they can wear it again in the future."
There was a constant tension between white demands on African American dress for both domestic slaves and field hands and the slaves' fight for as much autonomy within their dress as they could maintain.
Many companies, particularly those in the IT, fashion and entertainment industries have virtually abandoned the "corporate uniform." Others encourage candidates to dress as the interviewer does, meaning it is acceptable to come casual on dress-down day.
Dress as an analytical category, as I will show below, is very important in bringing in the temporality of state-society relations and revealing a wider division between cultural time and state time.
Thus, like social actors, the state changes dress as well.
Dress as means of authenticating social categories, legitimating and contesting authority, and as means of the producing and reproducing values(11) is a central component of my argument.
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