• Suit

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /s(j)uːt/
    • US IPA: /s(j)ut/
    • Rhymes: -uːt

    Origin

    From Anglo-Norman siute, from Old French sieute (modern suite), originally a participle adjective from Vulgar Latin *sequita (for secūta), from Latin sequi ("to follow"), because the component garments "follow each other", i.e. are worn together.

    Noun

    suit

    (plural suits)
    1. A set of clothes to be worn together, now especially a man's matching jacket and trousers (also business suit or lounge suit), or a similar outfit for a woman.
      • 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter Foreword, A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.
      • 2013-08-03, Revenge of the nerds, Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.
    2. Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding.
    3. (by extension) A single garment that covers the whole body: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit.
    4. (pejorative, slang) A person who wears matching jacket and trousers, especially a boss or a supervisor.
      Be sure to keep your nose to the grindstone today; the suits are making a "surprise" visit to this department.
    5. A full set of armour.
    6. (legal) The attempt to gain an end by legal process; a process instituted in a court of law for the recovery of a right or claim; a lawsuit.
      If you take my advice, you'll file suit against him immediately.
    7. (obsolete) The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
    8. Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend, Till this funereal web my labors end. —Alexander Pope.
    9. The full set of sails required for a ship.
    10. (card games) Each of the sets of a pack of cards distinguished by color and/or specific emblems, such as the spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs of traditional Anglo, Hispanic, and French playing cards.To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort Her mingled suits and sequences. — William Cowper.
    11. (obsolete) Regular order; succession.Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again. — Francis Bacon.
    12. (obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.Thenceforth the suit of earthly conquest shone. — Edmund Spenser.
    13. (archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
    14. (archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)

    Derived terms

    Terms derived from suit

    Full definition of suit

    Verb

    1. To make proper or suitable; to adapt or fit.
      • William ShakespeareLet your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
    2. (said of clothes, hairstyle or other fashion item) To be suitable or apt for one's image.
      The ripped jeans didn't suit her elegant image.
      That new top suits you. Where did you buy it?
    3. To be appropriate or apt for.
      The nickname "Bullet" suits her, since she is a fast runner.
    4. Ill suits his cloth the praise of railing well.
      • Matthew PriorRaise her notes to that sublime degree
        Which suits song of piety and thee.
      • 1910, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price Chapter 1, “… it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”
    5. (most commonly used in the passive form) To dress; to clothe.
    6. To please; to make content; as, he is well suited with his place; to fit one's taste.
      My new job suits me, as I work fewer hours and don't have to commute so much.
    7. (intransitive) To agree; to accord; to be fitted; to correspond; — usually followed by to, archaically also followed by with.

    Synonyms

    Derived terms

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