black tie

1. 1.

   semiformal evening dress for men

   Synonymsdinner jackettuxtuxedo

   Broaderformalwear
2. 2.

   a black bow tie worn with a dinner jacket

   Broaderbow tie

Questions about black tie

What does black tie mean?

black tie means "semiformal evening dress for men". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for black tie?

Close synonyms include dinner jacket, tux, tuxedo. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is black tie a common word?

black tie is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.