Other forms: wardrobes
A wardrobe is the tall piece of furniture where clothes hang. A rail inside, a door, and usually a mirror.
American English says closet, and an American closet is built into the wall rather than standing on the floor. The word also means all the clothes somebody owns, so a summer wardrobe is a collection rather than a cupboard. Theatre and film have a wardrobe department, which handles costume. One wardrobe in particular is famous, since a children's book made it the way into another world entirely.
1nounwardrobeA tall cupboard for hanging clothes.
“His coat was still in the wardrobe.”
2nounclothesAll the clothes a person owns.
“She replaced her whole wardrobe that spring.”
Also accepted in games: closet
A wardrobe keeps your robes safe. Old French garderobe is garder, to guard, plus robe, and the northern form warderobe is why English has a w where French kept a g, exactly as with guard and ward.
fro-nor
garderobe
Middle English
warderobe
English, today
wardrobe
Built from
From Middle English warderobe, from fro-nor garderobe, from und + guarder. From Middle English warderobe, from fro-nor warderoube, wardereube, northern variants of Old French garderobe, from garder (“to keep safe”) + robe. Subsequently influenced by various senses of garderobe as they developed in French. a doublet of garderobe. by surface analysis, ward + robe.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Clothes & Fashion, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word