"reach-me-down" meaning in English

See reach-me-down in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored. Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} reach-me-down (not comparable)
  1. Of clothing: ready-made. Tags: not-comparable
    Sense id: en-reach-me-down-en-adj-JmIzBZjw Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55

Noun

Forms: reach-me-downs [plural]
Etymology: An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored. Head templates: {{en-noun}} reach-me-down (plural reach-me-downs)
  1. (chiefly in the plural) Ready-made clothing. Tags: in-plural
    Sense id: en-reach-me-down-en-noun-nrUABU9I Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for reach-me-down meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "reach-me-down (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 25",
          "text": "A reach-me-down dress, a penny sparkler, a fancy cake, a sixpenny entertainment . . . how can such things use up so much money?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of clothing: ready-made."
      ],
      "id": "en-reach-me-down-en-adj-JmIzBZjw",
      "links": [
        [
          "clothing",
          "clothing"
        ],
        [
          "ready-made",
          "ready-made"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "reach-me-down"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "reach-me-downs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "reach-me-down (plural reach-me-downs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Indiscretions of Archie",
          "text": "He shrank from the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery, with these appalling reach-me-downs.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ready-made clothing."
      ],
      "id": "en-reach-me-down-en-noun-nrUABU9I",
      "links": [
        [
          "Ready-made",
          "ready-made"
        ],
        [
          "clothing",
          "clothing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly in the plural) Ready-made clothing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "in-plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "reach-me-down"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncomparable adjectives"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "reach-me-down (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 25",
          "text": "A reach-me-down dress, a penny sparkler, a fancy cake, a sixpenny entertainment . . . how can such things use up so much money?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of clothing: ready-made."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "clothing",
          "clothing"
        ],
        [
          "ready-made",
          "ready-made"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "reach-me-down"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncomparable adjectives"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "reach-me-downs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "reach-me-down (plural reach-me-downs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Indiscretions of Archie",
          "text": "He shrank from the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery, with these appalling reach-me-downs.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Ready-made clothing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Ready-made",
          "ready-made"
        ],
        [
          "clothing",
          "clothing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly in the plural) Ready-made clothing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "in-plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "reach-me-down"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.