poofy dress
- noun
- For the dance recital, she chose a sparkly poofy dress to captivate the audience.
Examples
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If she was wearing like a big poofy dress, like if she's wearing this dress, I don't know if you can see it, but they're cast shadows on her leg.
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The bride looked stunning in her poofy dress adorned with lace and sequins.
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Lame DJ, balloons, poofy dresses.
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At the party, the little girl twirled in her poofy dress, making it swirl around her.
Synonyms
A dress with a full, rounded skirt that looks puffy like a princess dress
A dress with ruffled layers that move when you walk
A dress with a full skirt that spins when you turn
Antonyms
How Full
Surface Forms
Morphology
poofy + dress
The meaning is directly compositional: 'poofy' describes a puffed-out or fluffy shape and 'dress' is a one-piece garment, so a B1 learner who knows both words can derive 'a dress with a full, puffed-out shape'. Although 'poofy' is informal and less frequent, the adjective+noun combination follows regular semantic composition and is therefore transparent.
Etymology
Poofy dress comes from the word poofy, like the small sound 'poof' when something puffs out; imagine a skirt that suddenly puffs up like a cloud or a pillow when you spin. That's why poofy dress means a dress with a full, puffed-out shape.