étui

Alternative forms

• etui

Origin

Borrowing from fr {{2}} étui.

Full definition of étui

Noun

1. A small, ornamental bag or rigid container used for holding articles such as needles.
• 1855, Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, Dover 1964, p. 26 n.:Secondly, glass bottles are useless: the drugs should be stowed away in tin or wooden boxes, such as the natives of the country use, and when a phial is required, it must be fitted into an étui of some kind.
• 1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill 1972, p. 13:And what about that comb in a real-leather etui, what about, what about it – oh, it would get fouled up in no time and it would take an hour of work to remove the grime from between its tight teeth ....----