costumes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of costume.

   Volunteers spent weeks sewing the costumes for the holiday pageant.

   Several costumes were damaged when the dressing room flooded.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable uses: separate outfits, disguises, sets of clothes for an occasion or season, or swimming costumes. When costume names a whole style of dress characteristic of a country, period or people, it usually stays uncountable, so a museum shows period costume rather than counting it. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, as in a designer who costumes the cast.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of costume.

   The studio costumes its performers in period-accurate fabrics.

   A single designer costumes the entire opera each season.

   Note

   A transitive verb: someone costumes a performer, a chorus or a whole production, and the person being dressed is the object. The garb usually follows with in (costumes its dancers in silk) or as (costumes the chorus as sailors). A singular subject before it is what tells it apart from the plural noun, which shares the spelling.

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