COSTUME • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Costume

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/kɑstˈum/ /kˈɑstum/ Listen

noun

Costume n.

Dress in general; esp., the distinctive style of dress of a people, class, or period.

Such an arrangement of accessories, as in a picture, statue, poem, or play, as is appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances represented or described. "I began last night to read Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel...I was extremely delighted with the poetical beauty of some parts...The costume, too, is admirable."

A character dress, used at fancy balls or for dramatic purposes.

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Etymology of 'Costume'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Costume" Quotes from Famous Books

... lacquer, and glossy like pomade. She wore a honey-coloured wadded robe, a rose-brown short-sleeved jacket, lined with the fur of the squirrel of two colours: the "gold and silver;" and a jupe of leek-yellow silk. Her whole costume was neither too new, neither too old, and displayed no ...

— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Here came a file of tall camels laden with merchandise, stalking along with silent tread; there rode a fat Turk on a very small donkey; then followed several ladies riding upon donkeys, and each wearing the invariable street costume of Egyptian ladies—a black silk mantle, with a white muslin face-veil which conceals all the features except the eyes. Kitty admired the Syce men running before the carriages to clear the way, and as she looked at their spangled vests and white, long sleeves waving backward ...

— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... picturesque halfbreed, his teeth flashing in an evil smile as he swept off his broad sombrero to her. Above her suddenly beating heart she sought to chat gayly, while the quick eyes of the outlaw took in the details of the smart riding costume that revealed every line of her lithe young figure. But suddenly she chilled under his hot glance that now ...

— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... to flatter the artist as much his sitter, so completely did it represent that unamity of opinion which constitutes social strength. Not one the number was troubled by any personal theory of art: all they asked of a portrait was that the costume should be sufficiently "life-like," and the face not too much so; and a long experience in idealizing flesh and realizing dress-fabrics had enabled Mr. Popple to meet ...

— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... females, the middle one an elderly, grave-looking lady; the other a beautiful young girl, with smiling lips, glowing black eyes, and rosy cheeks. The elegant and graceful attire of these ladies was very different from the grave and sober costume of the women of Berlin. Their dresses were of lively colors, with wide sleeves bordered with lace, and with long waists, the low cut of which in front displayed in the one the beauty and freshness of her neck; and in the other, the richness of a guipure scarf with ...

— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

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