Sunday best

See also: Sunday-best

English

Alternative forms

• Sunday-best

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

Sunday best (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) A person's finest clothing, especially the clothes one reserves to wear to church on Sunday.
   • 1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 83:

     And how then was the Devil drest? / Oh! he was in his Sunday's best

   • 1886, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 18, in Jo's Boys […] ‎^[1], Boston: Roberts Brothers:

     It took all the power and skill of that energetic woman to get her son into his Sunday best.

   • 1914, S. G. Tallentyre [Evelyn Beatrice Hall], “VIII. Realisation”, in Matthew Hargraves, London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 155:

     It was a brave sight on a Sunday morning to see those old Tottenhamites—each with his comfortable lady-wife on his arm—proceeding in their stiff Sunday best to the morning service; pitying the Quaker friends they met on their way for their incomplete and unenlightened faith—the Quakers, of course, pitying the Churchmen for theirs.

   • 2009 January 18, Brian Knowlton, “Economy and Iraq are set to lead Obama agenda”, in International Herald Tribune‎^[2], archived from the original on 2009-01-20:

     More than 250 people, most of them African-American churchgoers dressed in their Sunday best, erupted in screams when the presidential motorcade turned onto the street.

Synonyms

• roast-meat clothes (dated)
• Sunday-go-to-meeting

Translations

person's finest clothing

• Danish: søndagstøj
• Dutch: zondagse pak n
• Faroese: sunnudagsklæði n pl
• Finnish: pyhävaatteet pl, pyhäpuku
• French: endimanché (fr) (adjective)
• German: Sonntagsstaat (de)
• Greek: κυριακάτικα (el) n pl (kyriakátika)
• Scots: braws pl
• Spanish: endomingado (es) (adjective)
• Swedish: söndagskläder (sv) c pl

See also

• endimanched