uniformed

1. 1
   adjective

   Wearing a uniform, especially one that identifies a particular job, service, or organization.

   A uniformed doorman greeted every guest at the hotel entrance.

   Several uniformed nurses moved briskly between the crowded wards.

   Similarliveried

   Oppositeplainclothes

   Note

   Built like bearded or booted: the noun uniform plus -ed, meaning "provided with" rather than naming an action. That is why it does not grade. A person is uniformed or not, never more uniformed. It pairs naturally with similar formations, as in Alan Bennett's "a uniformed and bemedalled conciergerie" (2011), where the clothes stand for petty authority. Contrast the verb form, which comes from the verb to uniform.

2. 2
   adjective

   Belonging to a service or occupation that requires its members to wear a uniform, such as the police or military.

   After college she pursued a uniformed career, enlisting in the navy.

   Funding for the uniformed branches of the government rose sharply this year.

   Oppositecivilian

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of uniform.

   The charity uniformed hundreds of children before the new term began.

   Once the volunteers were uniformed, they reported to their assigned stations.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is transitive: you uniform someone, so the participle usually turns up in the passive. Here the line with the adjective "wearing a uniform" blurs. An object or a by-phrase ("uniformed by the company") marks the verb. The verb carries only the clothing meaning. The adjective uniform's sense of "all the same" gives it no matching verb meaning "to make alike."

Showing meanings only. Show all 3