suit

From Middle English sute, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suite, from 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.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /s(j)uːt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /s(j)ut/

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• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -uːt
• Homophone: soot (in some dialects)

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

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, “Foreword”, in The China Governess‎:

     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.

2. (by extension) A single garment that covers the whole body: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit.
3. (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.

4. A full set of armour.
5. (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.

6. (obsolete): The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
7. Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.
   • 1725, Alexander Pope, Odyssey (original by Homer)

     Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,
     Till this funereal web my labors end.

8. (obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Edmund Spenser

     Thenceforth the suit of earthly conquest shone.

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.
    • (Can we date this quote?) William Cowper

      To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort Her mingled suits and sequences.

11. (obsolete) Regular order; succession.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

    Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again.

12. (archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
13. (archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)

• suite

• suit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     Let 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, transitive) 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)To be appropriate or apt for.

   The nickname "Bullet" suits her, since she is a fast runner.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden

   Ill suits his cloth the praise of railing well.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Matthew Prior

     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 639762314, 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.”

4. (most commonly used in the passive form, intransitive) To dress; to clothe.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     So went he suited to his watery tomb.

5. 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.

6. (intransitive) To agree; to be fitted; to correspond (usually followed by to, archaically also followed by with)
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden

     The place itself was suiting to his care.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Joseph Addison

     Give me not an office / That suits with me so ill.

• to agree: agree, match, answer

• suited and booted
• suit up
• suit yourself

• ITUs, Situ, TUIs, Tsui, UTIs, iust, situ, tuis, utis

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• Rhymes: -ɥi

suit

1. third-person singular present indicative of suivre

suit

1. third-person singular present active indicative of suō

Borrowed from English suit.

suit m (plural suits)

1. (Jersey) suit (of clothes)

• fa