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say it: kah-STOOM
costume is a noun and verb meaning "the attire worn in a play or at a fancy dress ball". It carries 6 recorded senses.
the attire worn in a play or at a fancy dress ball
“he won the prize for best costume”
unusual or period attire not characteristic of or appropriate to the time and place
“in spite of the heat he insisted on his woolen costume”
the prevalent fashion of dress (including accessories and hair style as well as garments)
the attire characteristic of a country or a time or a social class
“he wore his national costume”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for costume come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.