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shirt-sleeve. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
shirt-sleeve, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
shirt-sleeve in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
shirt-sleeve you have here. The definition of the word
shirt-sleeve will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
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English
Etymology
The adjective sense is derived from the practice of taking one’s jacket off and relaxing in shirt sleeves.
Adjective
shirt-sleeve (not comparable)
- Having an informal, relaxed appearance or approach, particularly in business.
He had a shirt-sleeve style of management.
Noun
shirt-sleeve (plural shirt-sleeves)
- Alternative form of shirt sleeve
1872, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond:Not one of those rustic wassals of the Ouse of Widdlers, but ad his air curled and his shirt-sleaves tied up with pink ribbing as he led to the macy dance some appy country gal, with a black velvit boddice and a redd or yaller petticoat, a hormylu cross on her neck, and a silver harrow in her air!
1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night: A Romance, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night: A Romance With the Author’s Final Revisions, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951, →OCLC, book III (Casualties: 1925), page 153:But Dick's necessity of behaving as he did was a projection of some submerged reality: he was compelled to walk there, or stand there, his shirt-sleeve fitting his wrist and his coat sleeve encasing his shirt-sleeve like a sleeve valve, his collar moulded plastically to his neck, his red hair cut exactly, his hand holding his small briefcase like a dandy—just as another man once found it necessary to stand in front of a church in Ferrara, in sackcloth and ashes.
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