Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To remove the clothing of; disrobe.
  • intransitive verb To remove the bandages from (a wound, for example).
  • intransitive verb To take off one's clothing.
  • noun Informal attire or uniform.
  • noun Nakedness or partial nakedness.
  • noun Partial but incomplete dress.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Ordinary dress, as opposed to full dress or uniform, regarded as “dress” in a special sense; a loose negligent dress.
  • Pertaining to ordinary attire; hence, informal; unostentatious; simple: as, an undress uniform.
  • To take off the clothes of; strip: as, to undress a child.
  • To divest of ornaments or elegant attire; disrobe. To take the dressing, bandages, or covering from, as a wound.
  • To take off one's dress or clothes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A loose, negligent dress; ordinary dress, as distinguished from full dress.
  • noun (Mil. & Naval) An authorized habitual dress of officers and soldiers, but not full-dress uniform.
  • noun (Mil.) a substitute for dress parade, allowed in bad weather, the companies forming without arms, and the ceremony being shortened.
  • transitive verb To divest of clothes; to strip.
  • transitive verb To divest of ornaments to disrobe.
  • transitive verb (Med.) To take the dressing, or covering, from.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the state of having little or no clothes on

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb get undressed
  • verb remove (someone's or one's own) clothes
  • noun partial or complete nakedness

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From un- +‎ dress.

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Examples

  • Round the corner of an old building pour forth a company of soldiers in "undress" — very "undress" — costume, looking like a troop of navvies, though one-half may be men of fortune and position, who at home command their hundred servants and their carriages and horses, but here willingly, eagerly, shoulder their axe, and sally forth at dawn of day to throw up breastworks and erect batteries.

    Yorktown, Virginia 1861

  • He was dressed in what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his condemnation of foreigners.

    Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

  • Then Jack and Ruddy began to undress, that is, they took off everything but their pants.

    Mitch Miller Edgar Lee Masters 1909

  • The mayor, in undress, that is to say in garments of every day, having surveyed these preparations, returned to his _estaminet_, the Plat d'Or, and there folded his newspapers as usual for the day's distribution.

    In the Heart of the Vosges And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" Matilda Betham-Edwards 1877

  • At the Tuileries Napoleon put on what was called the undress attire; this he was to wear on his way from the palace to the Archbishop's.

    The Court of the Empress Josephine Arthur L��on Imbert de Saint-Amand 1867

  • You can get lots of interesting special effect shots of Mike the Martian killing innocent policemen with his mind-powers, or shots of curvaceous starlets in a various states of undress which is basically all the book has in it.

    MIND MELD: Stories Hollywood Should Film 2008

  • I never imagined him in any kind of undress during the whole exchange.

    Avec-culottes 2006

  • I have seen several paintings of women in what is described as "undress" which could mean house dress or could mean boudoir.

    Archive 2004-06-01 Holly 2004

  • I have seen several paintings of women in what is described as "undress" which could mean house dress or could mean boudoir.

    theory Holly 2004

  • Also he was informed that the mask he wore was, as he had guessed, a kind of undress uniform without which he must never appear, since for anyone except the Asika herself to look upon the naked countenance of an individual so mysteriously mixed up with Little

    A Yellow God: an Idol of Africa Henry Rider Haggard 1890

Comments

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  • The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Scene 2:

    "undress you, and come now to bed."

    September 2, 2009

  • "...he had not waited above ten minutes, when Emilia entered in a most enchanting undress, with all the graces of nature playing about her person, and in a moment riveted the chains of his slavery beyond the power of accident to unbind."

    — Smollett, Peregrine Pickle

    January 17, 2022