Meaning & use
cross dress
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Meaning
verbintransitive
To wear clothes traditionally associated with the opposite sex, for reasons such as performance, comfort, self-expression or fun.
Grammar: No object: he sometimes cross-dresses. It is often followed by for or as.
Patterns
- cross-dress for something
- cross-dress as someone
Actors in Shakespeare's time cross-dressed because women were not allowed on stage.
Some performers cross-dress for comedy shows and parades.
She cross-dressed as a prince for the school play.
Word forms
| third person singular | cross-dresses |
|---|---|
| past tense | cross-dressed |
| past participle | cross-dressed |
| -ing form | cross-dressing |
Common combinations
- cross-dress for a performance
- He cross-dressed for a performance in the community theater.
- cross-dress as a character
- She cross-dressed as a famous detective for the party.
- choose to cross-dress
- Some people choose to cross-dress at home or in public.
- cross-dress in public
- Laws once banned people from cross-dressing in public.
- historical cross-dressing
- Historical cross-dressing was common in some theater traditions.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dress up
- It is more general and can mean wearing a costume of any kind, not necessarily clothes of the other sex.
- drag
- It refers to performance, usually dressing in an exaggerated style for entertainment, and is narrower than cross-dress.
- gender-bend
- It is a playful and informal term for mixing masculine and feminine styles and can also apply to behavior.
Word family
- cross-dresser noun
- a person who cross-dresses
- cross-dressing noun
- the practice of wearing clothes of the opposite sex
- dress verb
- to put on clothes
- crossover noun
- a mixing of styles or categories
Commonly confused: cross dress or transgender?
cross dress vs transgender
Transgender describes a person's gender identity. Cross-dressing describes wearing certain clothes, which does not by itself show identity.
Practice
In the school play, the boy cross-dressed as the queen, which means he ____.
Choose one answer.
To cross-dress is to wear clothing associated with the other sex. The other choices have nothing to do with clothing.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cross dress”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.