en deshabille
- idiom
- /ɑ̃ deɪʒəˈbiː/
- UK
:
en deshabillé
- She answered the door en deshabille.
Examples
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She greeted her guests en deshabille, wrapped only in a silk robe.
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He prefers to relax en deshabille at home.
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He was caught en deshabille when the unexpected visitor arrived early in the morning.
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The artist painted his muse en deshabille, capturing her casual elegance.
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He was caught en deshabille when the unexpected visitor arrived early in the morning.
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She greeted her guests en deshabille, wrapped only in a silk robe.
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He prefers to relax en deshabille at home.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A state of being partly dressed in a careless or relaxed way
Partly dressed in a loose, untidy way
A state of being partly or carelessly dressed
Antonyms
How Dressed
Surface Forms
Morphology
en + deshabille
The phrase is compositionally predictable if a learner recognises the French elements — 'en' = 'in' and 'deshabille' = 'dressed carelessly' — yielding the sense 'in a state of partial/careless dress'. However, this is a French borrowing with non‑English morphology and a foreign preposition (and 'en' was not given a dictionary gloss here), so even knowing the parts the form and register may be unfamiliar and the precise nuance (partly vs carelessly dressed) is not fully predictable to typical B1 learners. For these reasons it is not fully transparent but shows clear compositional cues.
Etymology
En deshabille comes from French: en means 'in' and deshabille refers to being not fully dressed, so picture someone at home in a loose robe or slippers, not completely dressed. That's why the phrase means 'partly dressed'.