dinner jacket
3
3.1
- noun
- /ˈdɪnər ˈdʒækɪt/
- UK
:
chaqueta de cena
- Tonight he wore a white dinner jacket and a black silk ascot.
- a white dinner jacket
- a black dinner jacket
- a formal dinner jacket
Examples
-
Dinner without a dinner jacket is hardly, well, dinner, is it?
-
How am I going to get a dinner jacket for tonight?
-
I have a dinner jacket.
-
Do you have a dinner jacket?
-
As he went, he took off his dinner jacket and tie and dropped them on the front hall table.
Fiction book (1990) -
Wearing a dinner jacket with dark slacks and a ruffled white shirt, Don looked very elegant.
Fiction book (1991) -
Board members, museum patrons, and socialites mill about in dinner jackets and evening gowns, making small talk.
Fiction book (1992) -
The soiree, in the eyes of the stranger, Tali, was an overwhelming blur of silks, jewels, and white dinner jackets.
Fiction book (1996) -
For the black-tie event, he arrived looking sharp in his dinner jacket.
-
Many guests wore elegant dinner jackets at the gala last night.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A short coat that reaches the waist or hips and fastens at the front
80
3.0
A formal black jacket and matching trousers worn for evening events
80
3.7
A man's formal black jacket and matching trousers worn for evening events
3
3.8
Clothes worn for formal evening events, like a suit or long dress
1
4.2
Clothes worn for formal evening events like dinners or parties
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'dinner' (evening meal) with 'jacket' (a short coat): it denotes a jacket worn for dinner or evening occasions. This noun+noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and in English, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would likely infer the semiformal evening-wear sense.
Etymology
Dinner jacket comes from the simple idea of a dinner jacket, a jacket worn to 'dinner' at evening events where people wanted something less formal. In the 1800s men began wearing a short dark jacket instead of a very formal coat for evening meals, so today dinner jacket means a less formal black or dark jacket for evening dress.