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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

prêt-à-porter en · ADJ

Etymology

First use appears c. 1957 in Punch. See cite below. Reborrowed from French prêt-à-porter (1951), itself a calque of English ready-to-wear.

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable) Ready-to-wear.
    • gloves, scarves, jewellery, and prêt-à-porter clothes; belts, beads, flowers, scent ... all the fleeting frivolities and lovely ephemera of the passing mode are strewn about as though by some demented diseuse gone berserk with her travelling trunk of properties. 1957, Francis Cowley Burnand, Henry Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Owen Seaman, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor (editors), Punch, volume 232, page 136:

wikipedia: Punch (magazine)