Sunday-go-to-meeting
1
9.3
- adjective
- Archaic
:
ropa de domingo
- He wore a nice Sunday-go-to-meeting suit to the wedding to look his best.
- Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes
- Sunday-go-to-meeting shoes
Examples
-
My best Sunday-go-to-meeting hat!
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Her grandmother always insisted that they dress in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes for church.
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A brand new Sunday-go-to-meeting suit.
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Always, he was liberal in his Sunday-go-to-meeting and weighed down by effort.
Blog text (21) -
I brought one of my friends home for dinner, and when my mother saw he didn't have shoes, she made me give him my Sunday go-to-meeting shoes.
Blog text (34) -
Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
Blog text (34) -
When healthy strangers in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes want a chair without being offered, you just know what they've got to say is what you ain't wanting to hear.
Fiction book (2000) -
"I trudged upstairs, took off my Sunday-go-to-meeting costume, pulled on flannel bags, and a fuchsia Lacoste.
Fiction book (1992) -
For the special occasion, he bought a Sunday-go-to-meeting hat to match his elegant outfit.
Synonyms
1
7.2
Clothes you wear to church or other special events
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
Sunday-go-to-meeting = Sunday + go + meeting (semi-transparent) = to + Sunday + go + meeting
The literal components point to clothing worn when 'going to a Sunday meeting,' so learners can infer the general idea, but the phrase is idiomaticized to mean 'best/formal clothes' and is not strictly literal. [Postprocessing: moved 'to' from base_words to prefix]
Etymology
Sunday-go-to-meeting comes from an old phrase about the clothes people wore to go to church on Sunday, where the meeting meant the 'church service'. So it refers to your best, most formal clothes kept for special occasions.