Virtuous English AcademyClothes — A1 English Vocabulary
This A1 vocabulary list gathers 20 beginner English words about clothes — what we wear, every day and in every season. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using clothes words in English
The vocabulary here is straightforward and the grammar behind it is not. English treats several garments as permanently plural because they come in two halves — trousers, jeans, shorts, glasses — so they take a plural verb even when you mean one item. On top of that, clothes itself has no singular, and two of the commonest words on this list are different in British and American English.
What to watch out for
Two-legged garments are always plural
My trousers are new, not is new. The same goes for jeans, shorts, tights and glasses. To count them you use a pair of: a pair of trousers, two pairs of jeans. Socks, shoes, boots and gloves are ordinary plurals, but a pair of works with those too.
Clothes has no singular form
You cannot say a clothe. For one item, English uses a general word — a piece of clothing, an item of clothing — or just names the garment. Watch out for cloth, which looks similar and means material or a rag; the two are unrelated in everyday use.
Wear is the state, put on is the action
I am wearing a coat describes how you are dressed right now. I put on my coat describes the moment of dressing. The opposite of put on is take off, and both are separable: put your coat on and put on your coat are equally correct, but with a pronoun only one order works — put it on.
Words learners mix up
Two tables. The first is three words that sound alike to a beginner and cover different halves of the body. The second is the small parts attached to clothes, which take little words you cannot guess from the meaning.
Shirt, skirt and dress
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| shirt | The top half, with buttons down the front and a collar. Men and women both wear shirts. | He is wearing a white shirt. |
| skirt | The bottom half, hanging from the waist. One letter away from shirt, and the opposite end of the body. | She has a long black skirt. |
| dress | One piece covering top and bottom together. As a verb it means to put clothes on. | She bought a new dress. |
Say shirt and skirt aloud until they are genuinely different for you, because the vowel is the only thing separating them and listeners rely on it completely. As a verb, dress normally appears as get dressed: I get dressed after breakfast.
The small parts, and the words in front of them
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| The small bag sewn into clothes. Things are in your pocket, never on it. | My key is in my pocket. | |
| button | The round thing that closes a shirt or a coat. You do up buttons and undo them. | A button came off my jacket. |
| belt | The strap round your waist that holds up your trousers. It goes round, not on. | He is wearing a brown belt. |
The two verbs that cover almost everything here are do up and undo, and they work for buttons, a coat, a belt and a zip alike. Open your jacket will be understood but is not what people say. In a car the seat belt borrows the same word and takes different verbs again: you put it on or fasten it.
Collocations that sound natural
Four items and the phrases you will hear around them every day. Three of the four are plural words, so watch the verb.
shoes
a pair of shoesput on your shoestake off your shoesnew shoesschool shoes
In many British homes you take off your shoes at the door. Open your shoes is a translation from another language and means nothing here.
coat
a warm coatput your coat onhang up your coata winter coat
When British people want to leave, they say I’ll get my coat. Watch the word order with a pronoun: put it on is the only possible version.
hat
wear a hattake off your hata woolly hata sun hat
A soft one with a peak at the front is a cap rather than a hat, at least in careful speech. Older British men still take a hat off indoors as a politeness.
jeans
a pair of jeansblue jeanstight jeansold jeans
The verb has to be plural: my jeans are dirty, because English is counting the two legs rather than the one garment.
Where each word belongs
Five words worth a second look. Two of them mean something else entirely outside a clothes shop, one changes its spelling in the plural, and one is really a verb most of the time.
- glassesTwo meaningsThe things you wear to see, and also the things you drink from. A pair of glasses sits on your face; two glasses of water sit on the table.
- bootsBritish · car partShoes that cover the ankle. In British English the boot is also the luggage space at the back of a car, which Americans call the trunk.
- tieNoun and verbThe strip of cloth round the neck, and the verb for making a knot: tie your shoelaces. In sport it means a drawn match, with nobody winning.
- scarfPlural <em>scarves</em>The f turns into a v: one scarf, two scarves. British football supporters wear their team’s scarf, so the word appears well outside clothes shops.
- dressVerb in fixed phrasesAs a verb it lives in get dressed and dress up, which means putting on smart clothes or a costume. Dress alone about yourself sounds formal.
Sentences to try
Four frames for describing what people are wearing.
- I am wearing a blue shirt and black shoes.
- She has got a new pair of jeans.
- It is cold — put your coat on.
- My trousers are too long.
Questions about clothes vocabulary
Why do I say "my trousers are" and not "is"?
Because English treats garments with two legs or two lenses as plural objects, however many of them you own. Trousers, jeans, shorts, tights, glasses and scissors all behave this way and all take a plural verb. When you need to count them, add a pair of: a pair of trousers is expensive — and note that the verb now follows pair and turns singular again.
What is the difference between wear and put on?
Wear describes the state of having something on your body, so it is what you use to say how someone is dressed: He is wearing a suit. Put on describes the action of dressing, so it happens once and then stops: He put on his suit and left. The mistake to avoid is I am putting on a suit when you mean you are wearing one.
Which clothes words are different in British English?
Several on this list. Trousers is British and pants is American — and in British English pants means underwear, so the difference is worth knowing. A British jumper is an American sweater, British trainers are American sneakers, and a British waistcoat is an American vest. This site teaches British forms, but both are understood everywhere.