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Culture Learning Vocabulary

The meaning and origin of this saying: “Dressed to the nines”

Dressed flamboyantly, dressed well.

 

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New Years Eve is the one day of the year when people like to go out dressed to the nines.

Common lore has it that a tailor making a high quality suit uses more fabric. The best suits are made from nine yards of fabric. This may seem like a lot but a proper suit does indeed take nine yards of fabric. This is because a good suit has all the fabric cut in the same direction with the warp, or long strands of thread, parallel with the vertical line of the suit. This causes a great amount of waste in suit making, but if you want to go «dressed to the nines», you must pay for such waste.