Meanings
- rareuncountableClothing suitable for an office or business setting, such as a business suit or skirt suit.
When it's needed, the priest, in tenue de ville, takes it from his pocket, unfolds it, kisses it, says a prayer, and then places it about his neck.
2002, Paul Fussell, Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear, Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 702 more examples
No one would imagine that a man in an ice cream suit and a blue shirt, a tenue de ville as specified by his hostess, his arms full of liquor bottles, would have a bad conscience because he had failed to notice thunderheads on the horizon — but such was life in Llewellyn Group.
1999, Ward Just, A Dangerous Friend, Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 171We have inherited only the remnants of this period: for example, in the form of uncertainty in dress etiquette that stresses us out when we read 'Tenue de Ville' on an invitation. What on earth am I going to wear, we hear ourselves saying?
2012, Maureen van Raaijen, The Little Black Dress For you, →ISBN, page 19
Origin
- Frenchtenue de ville
- Englishtenue de ville
Borrowed from French tenue de ville (literally “city dress”).
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
tenue de ville. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenue%20de%20ville
“tenue de ville.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenue%20de%20ville. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tenue de ville,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenue%20de%20ville.
Source: tenue de ville on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.