What is "dressing down"

vb. (present participle of dress down English)

n. a severe scolding [syn: castigation, earful, bawling out, chewing out, upbraiding, going-over]

"Dressing down" or "dressing-down" is an English-language idiom that may refer to:

• An especially severe, highly formalized, and often public form of military discipline incident to reduction in rank or, in extreme cases, complete dismissal via the ceremony of degradation (also termed " cashiering," especially when performed upon an officer): To amplify the already-severe punishment inherent in a reduction in rank, the authorities imposing it may confirm it in a ceremony whose form is analogous to that of a promotion ceremony in that its participants remove the uniform's existing rank insignia and replace that insignia with the insignia of the soldier's new, lesser/lower rank; the degradation/cashiering ceremony has traditionally involved stripping both rank insignia and all other military insignia from the uniform.
  • By metonymy from the associated ceremony, the reduction in rank itself
• The wearing of clothes socially regarded as being appropriate for only events less formal than the occasion at which one is wearing them (contrast antonym "dress[ing] up" from which this usage of the idiom is derived by alteration)
  • "Dress-down day" (more commonly " casual day"), a workday during which the managers of a business formally relax its dress code for the day, usually to a specified degree and pursuant to an announcement made far enough in advance that employees can plan accordingly

:** When managers schedule such relaxations at regular intervals as part of the dress code itself, rather than an authorized departure from it, workdays featuring them are widely known as "dress-down [X]" or "casual [X]," where X is the recurring occasion (e.g., a given weekday, as in " casual Friday") with which the relaxation is associated.