(one's) best bib and tucker
Like this video? Subscribe to our free daily email and get a new idiom video every day!
(one's) best bib and tucker
One's dressiest or most formal attire. A "bib" and a "tucker" are outdated clothing embellishments. Be sure to wear your best bib and tucker to the gala tonight.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
one's best bib and tucker
Rur. one's best clothing. I always put on my best bib and tucker on Sundays. Put on your best bib and tucker, and let's go to the city.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
best bib and tucker
One's finest clothes, dressed up, as in The men were told to put on their best bib and tucker for the dinner dance. Although wearing either a bib (frill at front of a man's shirt) or a tucker (ornamental lace covering a woman's neck and shoulders) is obsolete, the phrase survives. [Mid-1700s] For a synonym, see Sunday best.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
your best bib and tucker
OLD-FASHIONEDIf you are wearing your best bib and tucker, you are wearing very smart, formal clothes. The conference guests all turned up on time in their best bib and tucker. Note: In the past, a `bib' was the part of an apron which covered the chest. A `tucker' was a decorative part of a woman's dress, covering her neck and shoulders.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
your best bib and tucker
your best clothes. informalBib and tucker originally referred to certain items of women's clothing. A bib is a garment worn over the upper front part of the body (e.g. the bib of an apron), and a tucker was a decorative piece of lace formerly worn on a woman's bodice.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
your best bib and ˈtucker
(humorous) your best clothes that you only wear on special occasions: Bill put on his best bib and tucker and booked a table at a top restaurant for a romantic dinner. Bib and tucker are both items of clothing worn in the past.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
best bib and tucker, one's
Dressed in one’s finest clothes. A tucker was an ornamental piece of lace worn by women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to cover the neck and shoulders. A bib was either a fancy frill worn at the front of a man’s shirt or an actual formal shirt front. Their pairing with best dates from the mid-eighteenth century. The word bib appeared in print in America in 1795: “The old gentleman put on his best bib and band [i.e., collar]” (The Art of Courting, Newburyport, Massachusetts). A later locution, dating from the mid-nineteenth century, is one’s Sunday best, also known as Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. It refers to an era when one’s finery was reserved for church (or “prayer meeting”). These Americanisms sound archaic today. See also gussied up.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer