Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective requiring semiformal evening clothes, e. g. a black bowtie and a tuxedo or dinner jacket for men, and a formal dress for women; contrasted with white-tie, for a fully formal occasion, and with informal, and casual.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Moderately formal; usually requiring a dinner jacket (tuxedo) for men.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective moderately formal; requiring a dinner jacket
  • noun a black bow tie worn with a dinner jacket
  • noun semiformal evening dress for men

Etymologies

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Examples

  • That evening I was attending a big Democratic Party dinner at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, a black-tie fund-raiser, and the news spread through the room with whispers and gasps.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • That evening I was attending a big Democratic Party dinner at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, a black-tie fund-raiser, and the news spread through the room with whispers and gasps.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • That evening I was attending a big Democratic Party dinner at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, a black-tie fund-raiser, and the news spread through the room with whispers and gasps.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • Three months earlier, Bush had already obliquely acknowledged this at the annual Radio & TV Correspondents black-tie dinner in Washington, where he joked about how no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.

    The Longest War Peter L. Bergen 2011

  • As the black-tie party got into full swing, the beautiful and glamorous Becky Hamilton made her entrance, sweeping down the circular staircase into the living room wearing a stunning off-the-shoulder black gown with swirling inserts of lace.

    Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

  • The Awards were announced at a black-tie event here in New York with the Indian Ambassador to the U.S., the Hon.

    Jim Luce: Overseas Indian Elite Elect Their Best at Waldorf-Astoria Jim Luce 2011

  • I used to quite enjoy going to the black-tie Balls at Uni in Scotland, but the idea of office get-togethers here in north america fills me with horror.

    The Office Party « Tales from the Reading Room 2009

  • Somehow it has become the Platonic ideal of a D.C. black-tie gala.

    The Meridian Ball: Champagne, bonbons, dancing, no speeches The Reliable Source 2010

  • Elsewhere, guests at black-tie functions were likely miffed by the weather.

    Finding Some Zen in the Rain Lizzie Simon 2011

  • It was always a glittering black-tie affair with fine silver candelabras and McLean presiding with the forty-five-and-a-half-carat Hope Diamond dangling from her neck.

    Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

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