Sunday best

alternative Sunday-best

1. idiomaticuncountableA person's finest clothing, especially the clothes one reserves to wear to church on Sunday.

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

   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

   3 more examples

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

   1886, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 18, in Jo’s Boys, and How They Turned Out. A Sequel to “Little Men.”, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC

   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.

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

   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.

   2009 January 18, Brian Knowlton, “Economy and Iraq are set to lead Obama agenda”, in International Herald Tribune, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2009

   Synonyms: Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, roast-meat clothes