fancy-dress ball
1
7.0
- noun
- /ˈfæn.si.dres bɔːl/
- UK
:
baile de disfraces
- And a trunk for my fancy dress ball clothes...
Examples
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Everyone arrived in stunning outfits at the fancy-dress ball themed around classic movies.
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- Looks like he's been to a fancy dress ball.
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And what are you dressed up for, a fancy dress ball?
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The girl who had dressed for the fancy dress ball the night before had been left behind.
Academic text (2016) -
It all started at fancy dress ball.
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They used to throw these huge fancy dress balls, inviting all the old family gentry.
Fiction book (2002) -
It's our fancy-dress ball.
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Ten will get you twenty that one day soon Gabe'll be covering some Baroness de Rothschild's fancy-dress ball.
Fiction book (1990) -
Attending a fancy dress ball during a stay in London, Brant came richly dressed in the costume of his nation, wearing no mask but painting one half of his face.
Academic text (2017) -
The charity organization is hosting a fancy-dress ball to raise funds for local schools.
Synonyms
253
2.6
A large formal dance where people wear elegant clothes
14
6.8
A party where people wear masks and fancy costumes
4
4.1
A large school dance where people wear dress clothes
4
4.8
A formal party where guests wear masks and costumes to hide who they are
2
4.3
A formal party where people wear masks and fancy costumes
1
4.3
A party where people wear masks and costumes to hide who they are
How Elaborate
Surface Forms
Morphology
fancy-dress + ball
The meaning is directly composed from 'fancy-dress' (fancy clothing or costumes) plus 'ball' (a formal dance), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer it is a dance where people wear costumes. The hyphenation does not obscure the compositional meaning and the concept of a costume party/masquerade is cross-linguistically common, so this is immediately understandable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Fancy-dress ball comes from old parties where guests wore very showy clothes and masks to look like other people or characters. The words fancy, dress and ball literally mean 'showy', 'clothes' and 'formal dance', so today it means 'a party where guests wear costumes'.