Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) of clothes and other things, the best.

1835		B.A. Reynolds Cassimer Saral 20: If these British rogues fire coming here to take away the bread from our mouths. why all I say is, they must be as smart as a Sunday-go-to-meeting !
1841		Southern Literary Messenger VII 646/2: [He discarded] his ‘Sunday-go-to-meetin’ broadcloth’ [DA].
1849		American Phrenological Journal X 225: Your crack-up panacea is at home, in your Sunday-go-to-meeting-coat pocket, and you down with this dreadful gallows dose.
1851		‘How Mike Hooter Came Very Near “Wolloping” Arch Coony’ in Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 151: Then I pulled off my ole Sunday-go-to-meetin’ coat.
1859		H.E. Taliaferro Fisher’s River 171: His ‘Sunday go-to-meetin’’ hat is an old-fashioned, smooth, bell-crowned fur hat.
1868		Carlisle Wkly Herald (PA) 12 June 2/8: He was known by the various names of ‘Pompey Jim,’ ‘Banty Jim,’ and Mr James Powell, the latter being his Sunday-go-to-meeting cognomen.
1870		Barnsley Chron. 26 Mar. 6/1: ‘I paid Snip Stitchlouse, the tailor, for my last pair of “Sunday-go-to-meeting” trowzes’.
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 27 Oct. 7/3: The good-hearted Welshman had lent me his best ‘Sunday-go-to-meeting’ shirt.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 16 Sept. 7/4: Coroner Smith donned his plug hat and Sunday-go-to-meetlng clothes .
1884		J. Harrison ‘Negro English’ in Anglia VII 262: Er bran-new soot er Sunday-go-ter-meetins = a new Sunday suit.
1890		Alma Signal (KS) 18 Jan. 1/2: She was overtaken by Mr Jonathan Dubkins, dressed in his best and driving [...] his Sunday-go-to-meeting chaise.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 359: Half-a-crown would scarcely compensate him for the damage sustained by his best Sunday-go-to-meeting bell-topper.
1899		Newcastle Courant 18 Nov. 5/2: Take off that go-to-meeting clobber.
1900		E. Glyn Visits of Elizabeth 39: They were quite old maids, past thirty, with such funny, grand, best smart Sunday-go-to-meeting looking clothes on.
1902		T.B. Aldrich A Sea Turn 199: The street wasn’t what might be called a Sunday-go-to-meeting street, but the neighbors [...] lodged complaints [DA].
1906		Truth (Brisbane) 22 Apr. 6/2: Things were brighter on the lawn, and the best Sunday ‘go-to-meetlng’ were much in evidence.
1912		Sport (Adelaide) 3 Feb. 7/2: Jack D. kept on the square, but the others had a ‘tid’ or two. Sparrow [...] fell in the water and settled his best Sunday go-Meeting suit.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 234: Here ah am, all spruced up in mah Sunday-go-to-meeting duds.
1933		Z.N. Hurston Gilded Six-Bits (1995) 987: We goin’ down de road a lil piece t’night so you go put on yo’ Sunday-go-to-meetin’ things.
1934		Z.N. Hurston Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1995) 14: These girls all had on starchy little aprons over Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses.
1939		Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 57: .
1940		M. Marples (ref. to mid-late 19C) Public School Slang 96: A boy may no longer refer to his tile or his go-to-meeting roof (=best hat), like the characters in ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays,’ nor yet to boilers and chimney-pots, like those in ‘The Fifth Form at St Dominic’s’.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 247: I press the Sunday-go-to-meeting britches.
2014		Northwest Herald (Woodstock, IL) 10 Oct. 2/3: I do have a set of colored shirts [...] but those are Sunday-go-to-meeting shirts worn on Sundays.

2. (US black) of ‘church ladies’, pious, regular church attendees.

1942

‘Marienne’ ‘Solid Meddlin’’ in People’s Voice (NY) 4 Apr. 30/1: The Sunday go-to-meeting’-gals will make their holiday debut wearin’ everything ’cept the Lenox avenue bus.