to dress as
61
3.5
- phrasal verb
- /drɛs æz/
:
disfrazarse de
- She loves to dress as her favorite superhero for Comic-Con every year.
- dressed as a woman
- dressed as a man
- dressed as a dancer
In my junior year, I dressed as Alex from Clockwork Orange.
- In my junior year, I dressed as Alex from Clockwork Orange.
- We had, you know, people dressed as referees, fancy dress.
- And he was dressed as the Fonz.
- OK, we got people to storm the Capitol dressed as a Buffalo.
- Hope you like my costume that I wore, because tonight I'm dressed as the spookiest October surprise.
- Oh no, a dog dressed as Chucky.
- It's like they having an event where men dress as women.
- Here's my here's my mom dressed as a leopard.
- And I went to court there one day dressed as a court jester.
- So you've seen Jamie Hyneman dressed as a traffic cop, white gloves and all.
Examples
-
Let us dress as New Yorkers.
-
Did Nicholson show up to the premiere of Batman dressed as the Joker?
-
Why must I dress as a boy?
-
So excited in fact I have dressed as a Christmas tree.
-
I once went to a Halloween party dressed as a baby.
-
Why are you dressed as a milkman?
-
This is actually me at a fancy dress Christmas party dressed as the late, great Freddie Mercury.
-
If we went to a Halloween party dressed as Batman and Robin, I'd go as Robin.
-
As they kick into gear, Natalie comes out with them, dressed as a Duke cheerleader.
Fiction book (2000) -
At the costume party, I decided to dress as a pirate with a hat and sword.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To put clothes on yourself or someone else
253
1.0
To put on clothes
178
2.7
Put on special clothes for an event or to look attractive
70
7.2
Pretend to be another person by copying their looks, voice or actions
5
3.9
To put on clothes or a mask to hide who you are
2
7.3
To dress and act like a character from a film, book, or game at fan events
2
7.1
To wear a mask or costume to join a masked party
1
7.4
To dress up as a character from a film, book, or game at fan events
Antonyms
How Elaborate
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'dress' (to put clothing on) combined with 'as' (in the role/like) yields 'wear clothing to look like someone/something.' This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'vestirse de', French 'se déguiser en') and, aside from the polysemy of 'as' in other contexts, a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Dress as comes from the simple image of putting on clothes, a mask, or a costume to look like someone or something. Think of dress as the clothes you wear and as as 'to be like'. So, dress as means 'to put on clothing or a costume to look like someone or something'.