suit

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See also: Suit, sùit, and süit

English

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A man in a three-piece suit with a bowler hat, glasses and an umbrella.

Etymology

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From Middle English sute, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suite and Old French sieute, siute (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. See also the doublet suite. Cognate with Italian seguire and Spanish seguir. Related to sue and segue.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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suit (plural suits)

  2. (clothing) 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, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      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 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      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.
    Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding.
  3. (by extension) A garment or set of garments suitable and/or required for a given task or activity: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit, swimsuit.
  4. (Pakistan, women's speech) a dress.
  5. (derogatory, slang, metonymically) 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.
    • 1996, Ani DiFranco (lyrics and music), “Napoleon”, in Dilate:
      You had an army / Of suits behind you
    • 2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 29:
      Two smartly dressed suits walked up to the doctor. "Are you alright Dr. La Perouse?"
    • 2020, Emily Segal, Mercury Retrograde, New York: Deluge Books, →ISBN:
      Suits didn't wear suits any more—they wore Tibetan prayer beads coiled around their wrists. But they slithered in a suitlike way.
  6. A full set of armour.
  7. (law) 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 a suit against him immediately.
  8. Petition, request, entreaty.
  9. (obsolete) The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
  10. Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.
  11. (obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.
  12. The full set of sails required for a ship.
  14. (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.
    • 1785, William Cowper, The Task:
      To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort
      Her mingled suits and sequences.
  15. (obsolete) Regular order; succession.
    Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again.
  16. (archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
  17. (archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Kashubian: sut (Canada, United States)
  • → Swahili: suti

Translations

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See also

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Suits in English · suits (see also: cards, playing cards) (layout · text)
hearts diamonds spades clubs

Verb

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suit (third-person singular simple present suits, present participle suiting, simple past and past participle suited)

  1. (transitive) To make proper or suitable; to adapt or fit.
  2. (transitive, 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. (transitive, figurative) To be appropriate or apt for.
    The nickname "Bullet" suits her, since she is a fast runner.
    • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Cymon and Iphigenia, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
      Ill suits his cloth the praise of railing well.
    • c. 1700, Matthew Prior, epistle to Dr. Sherlock
      Raise her notes to that sublime degree / Which suits song of piety and thee.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 0029:
      “ […] 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.”
    • 1968, Fred Neil (lyrics and music), “Everybody's Talkin'”, performed by Harry Nilsson:
      I'm going where the sun keeps shinin' […] / Going where the weather suits my clothes
  4. (most commonly used in the passive form, intransitive) To dress; to clothe.
  5. (intransitive, transitive) To please; to make content; to fit one's taste.
    He is well suited with his place.
    My new job suits me, as I work fewer hours and don't have to commute so much.
    • 2022 November 16, Nigel Harris, “Endless news... little context”, in RAIL, number 970, page 3:
      This arrangement suited everybody - right up until the moment that it suddenly didn't, when unions were able to point a loaded gun at management's head in any disputes.
  6. (intransitive) To agree; to be fitted; to correspond (usually followed by to, archaically also followed by with).
    Synonyms: agree, match, answer
  7. (intransitive, furry slang) Clipping of fursuit.

Derived terms

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Translations

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to please, to make content

Anagrams

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French

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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suit

  1. third-person singular present indicative of suivre

Latin

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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suit

  1. third-person singular present active indicative of suō

Norman

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English suit.

Noun

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suit m (plural suits)

  1. (Jersey) suit (of clothes)
    Synonym: fa

Romanian

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Etymology

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Past participle of sui.

Noun

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suit n (uncountable)

  1. climbing

Declension

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declension of suit (singular only)
singular
n gender indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) suit suitul
genitive/dative (unui) suit suitului
vocative suitule

Verb

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suit (past participle of sui)

  1. past participle of sui
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