clothes on one's back

noun

The clothes that one is currently wearing, regarded as basic possessions.

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Meanings

nounclothes on one's back pl (plural only)
  1. pluralplural onlyThe clothes that one is currently wearing, regarded as basic possessions.
    1 more example

    In addition to these articles we had a little bit of tinder, and the clothes on our backs. These last were as follows:— Each of us had on a pair of stout canvass trousers, and a pair of sailors’ thick shoes. Jack wore a red flannel shirt, a blue jacket, and a red Kilmarnock bonnet or night-cap, besides a pair of worsted socks, and a cotton pocket-handkerchief, with sixteen portraits of Lord Nelson printed on it, and a union Jack in the middle.

    1858, R M Ballantyne, The Coral Island
Cite this entry
APA

clothes on one's back. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clothes%20on%20one's%20back

MLA

“clothes on one's back.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clothes%20on%20one's%20back. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “clothes on one's back,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/clothes%20on%20one's%20back.

Source: clothes on one's back on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.