dress down

verb

dressed down; dressing down; dresses down

transitive verb

: to reprove severely

intransitive verb

: to dress casually especially for reasons of fashion

Synonyms

• baste
• bawl out
• berate
• call down
• castigate
• chastise
• chew out
• flay
• hammer
• jaw
• keelhaul
• lambaste
• lambast
• lecture
• rag
• rail (at or against)
• rant (at)
• rate
• ream (out)
• rebuke
• reprimand
• reproach
• scold
• score
• tongue-lash
• upbraid

Examples of dress down in a Sentence

dressed down for boorish behavior at the dance

Recent Examples on the Web

Striking that right balance between dressy and dressed down is certainly an art—but luckily there’s a handful of celebrities who’ve recently nailed the look. —Christian Allaire, Vogue, 21 Mar. 2025

Dylan Efron dressed down to set the record straight. —Raven Brunner, People.com, 6 Mar. 2025

Young became the most vocal of many congressional critics to publicly dress down the Coast Guard for resisting Chouest’s offering of the Aiviq. —Mckenzie Funk, ProPublica, 23 Jan. 2025

This was heightened by the extraordinary dressing down Trump and Vice President JD Vance gave Zelensky in his recent Oval Office visit and an apparent rapprochement between the White House and the Kremlin. —William Lambers, Newsweek, 9 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1852, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Rhymes for dress down

• adown
• blowdown
• breakdown
• countdown
• crackdown
• crosstown
• downtown
• drawdown
• dropdown
• facedown
• godown
• hometown

Kids Definition

dress down

verb

1

: to criticize severely

2

: to dress casually