try on
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See also: try-on
English
[edit]
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]try on (third-person singular simple present tries on, present participle trying on, simple past and past participle tried on)
- (transitive) To test the look or fit of (a garment) by wearing it.
- Coordinate term: try out
- c. 1601, Gervase Markham, The Dumb Knight, London: John Bache, 1608, Act III,[1]
- Fore God it is a delicate fine suite, rich stuffe, rare worke, and of the newest fashion; nay if the Senats businesse were neuer so hasty, I will stay to try it on, come, help good wenches helpe, so there, there there.
- 1763, Arthur Murphy, The Citizen[2], London: G. Kearsly, act II, scene 1, page 27:
- Who is this fellow, Corinna? Some journeyman taylor, I suppose, who chuses to try on the gentleman’s cloaths before he carries them home—
- 1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 19, in Little Women[3]:
- […] Amy tried on the blue ring with a delighted face and a firm resolve to earn it.
- 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel[4], New York: Scribner, Part Two, Chapter 17, p. 188:
- “It would be a pity to throw away a good pair of shoes,” she said. “Try ’em on, boy.”
- (transitive, slang) To attempt; to undertake.
- 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XXV, in Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC:
- “He says, and gives it out publicly, “I want to see the man who’ll rob me.” Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, “You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why don’t you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can’t I tempt you?” Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money.”
- 1953, Mary Renault, chapter 2, in The Charioteer[5], New York: Pantheon, published 1959, page 26:
- He could have feigned noncomprehension, but with Lanyon one didn’t try anything on.
Usage notes
[edit]- In sense 1, it is a separable phrasal verb
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to test the look of
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