wedding gown
16
1.8
- noun
- /ˈwɛdɪŋ ɡaʊn/
:
vestido de novia
- Four days have passed since I was married, and I am still wearing my wedding gown.
- a white wedding gown
- the bride in her wedding gown
- a beautiful wedding gown
Things such as the homeless people's blankets and torn wedding gowns.
- Things such as the homeless people's blankets and torn wedding gowns.
Examples
-
Chelsea picked out her wedding gown last weekend for the big day.
-
Chelsea picked out her wedding gown.
-
So, will you make her a wedding gown?
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- Did you get your wedding gown yet?
-
This was her wedding gown.
-
I remember how excited she was about picking out her wedding gown.
-
I saw myself in a wedding gown walking down that aisle.
Fiction book (1997) -
Just as every woman could describe her wedding gown down to the smallest detail.
Fiction book (1994) -
She could help me choose my wedding gown.
-
Following a Western model, the bride dresses in a white wedding gown and the groom in a tuxedo or dark suit.
Academic text (2001)
Synonyms
62
1.0
A long formal gown worn by a bride at her wedding
2
2.8
A long formal dress a bride wears at her wedding
How Elaborate
16
1.8
62
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'wedding' (a marriage ceremony) + 'gown' (a long formal dress) yields a formal dress worn at a wedding, which a B1 learner who knows both words can infer. This noun+noun compounding is a common, transparent pattern cross-linguistically, so the phrase is immediately understandable from its parts.
Etymology
Wedding gown comes from the simple idea of a wedding, the ceremony, and a gown, a formal long dress. One popular story says a queen in the 1800s wore a white dress at her wedding and many people copied her, so today wedding gown means the special, often white, dress a 'bride' wears at her 'wedding'.