dress down — wear casual clothes
phrasal verbB1IELTS 5+neutralcommon
to wear clothes that are more casual and relaxed than usual, especially instead of formal or work clothes.
Say it like a native
Textbook On Fridays employees may wear less formal attire.
Native On Fridays we get to dress down.
'Dress down' is the everyday phrase for casual wear; 'wear less formal attire' is a staff handbook.
Pattern: dress down (for something)
In use
- On Fridays, we can dress down and wear jeans to the office.daily life
- At my university, we usually dress down for lectures, but we dress up for presentations.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ We dress down ourselves on Fridays.
✓ We dress down on Fridays.
'Dress down' is intransitive — no reflexive object.
Common collocations
dress down + occasion— on Fridays, for the office, a dress-down day, a bit
Don't confuse it
'Dress up' means to wear more formal or special clothes.
Related
- dress down (criticize) — Another meaning of 'dress down' is 'criticize'; compare the examples to keep the meanings separate.