Other forms: dressed, dressing, dresses
A dress is a one-piece garment that covers the body and hangs like a skirt below. A summer dress, a wedding dress, put on a dress.
As an uncountable noun, dress means clothing of a particular kind: evening dress, formal dress, fancy dress — which in Britain means a costume party and not a smart one. As a verb, to dress is to put clothes on, to prepare a wound, and to prepare food: dress a salad. Note dress up, dress down, dressing gown, and dressed to kill.
1noundressA one-piece garment hanging like a skirt below.~75%
“She wore a long blue dress to her sister's wedding.”
2verbputTo put clothes on, or to prepare something.~25%
“He dressed quickly and ran to catch the bus.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 23 sentences found in the wild and placed 8 of them on a sense (15 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
dress is a garment, or a preparing.
Old French dresser meant to arrange or make straight, from Latin directus — the same root as direct. Dressing was putting in order, which is why you dress a wound, dress a salad and dress a shop window as well as yourself.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
la-cla
dīrēctus
Latin
*dīrēctiāre — to guide, direct
Old French
dresser
Middle English
dressen
English, today
dress
Built from
The verb is from Middle English dressen, dresse (“to arrange, put in order”), from Anglo-Norman -, Old French dresser, drecier (modern French dresser), from Latin dīrēctiāre (“to guide, direct”), from la-cla dīrēctus, whence direct. Further akin to regō. The noun is derived from the verb. Compare typologically adorn (<< ōrnō < ōrdō, whence also ōrdinō, order, ornament); наряжа́ть, наря́д (akin to ряд, поря́док).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA