Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Cut low at the neckline.
  • adjective Wearing a garment that is low-cut or strapless.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Low-necked: said of a dress-waist so shaped as to leave the neck and shoulders exposed.
  • By extension, having the neck and shoulders exposed: said of a woman the waist of whose dress is cut low in the neck.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Leaving the neck and shoulders uncovered; cut low in the neck, or low-necked, as a dress.
  • adjective Wearing a décolleté gown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having a low neckline that reveals the cleavage.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of a garment) having a low-cut neckline

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, past participle of décolleter, to lower a neckline, uncover the neck : dé-, off (from Latin dē-; see de–) + collet, collar (from Old French, diminutive of col, neck, collar, from Latin collum, neck; see kwel- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French, from décolleter ("to bare the neck and shoulders").

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Examples

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Comments

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  • Sophisticates turn bored away

    On seeing what some think risqué:

    A skirt that’s split high

    For a glimpse of a thigh

    Or top that is décolleté.

    February 10, 2018

  • Two notes on decollete/décolleté: I assume that the unaccented version exists only because of US publishers’ misguided aversion to French accents. I have never heard ir pronounced as though unaccented. Also, it is defined here as an adjective but is frequently used as a noun.

    February 10, 2018