Reach-me-down

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Ready-made clothing. in-plural

    "He shrank from the prospect of being confronted next day, at the height of his misery, with these appalling reach-me-downs."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Ready-made. not-comparable

    "A reach-me-down dress, a penny sparkler, a fancy cake, a sixpenny entertainment . . . how can such things use up so much money?"

Synonyms

All synonyms
ready-made

Example

More examples

"A reach-me-down dress, a penny sparkler, a fancy cake, a sixpenny entertainment . . . how can such things use up so much money?"

Etymology

An allusion to clothes being simply taken down from a rack, rather than tailored. See reach down.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.