"Dressing down" or "dressing-down" is an English-language idiom that may refer to: An especially severe, highly formalized, and often public form of military discipline incident to reduction in rank or, in extreme cases, complete dismissal via the ceremony of degradation : To amplify the already-severe punishment inherent in a reduction in rank, the authorities imposing it may confirm it in a ceremony whose form is analogous to that of a promotion ceremony in that its participants remove the uniform's existing rank insignia and replace that insignia with the insignia of the soldier's new, lesser/lower rank; the degradation/cashiering ceremony has traditionally involved stripping both rank insignia and all other military insignia from the uniform. Wikipedia