étui
US/eɪˈtwiː/
étui noun: a small, ornamental bag or rigid container used for holding articles such as needles.
Noun
étui (plural étuis)
- A small, ornamental bag or rigid container used for holding articles such as needles.
- From the inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, and dressed in the gayest style of the day; her pincushion and scissars discarded for an etwee and watch, and the tender native hue of her complexion incrusted with paint, and disguised by patches.1791 June 1, John Ireland, “The Harlot’s Progress. Plate I.”, in Hogarth Illustrated, volume I, [London]: J[ohn] & J[osiah] Boydell […], →OCLC, pages 4–5
- 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.1855, Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, Dover, published 1964, p. 26 n
Forms of étui
| plural | étuis |
|---|---|
| alternative form | etwee |
| alternative form | etui |
Origin of étui
Borrowed from French étui.
Questions about étui
- What does étui mean?
- Étui means a small, ornamental bag or rigid container used for holding articles such as needles.
- What part of speech is étui?
- Étui is a noun.
- How do you pronounce étui?
- Étui is pronounced /eɪˈtwiː/ (US).
- What is the plural of étui?
- The plural of étui is étuis.
Words near étui in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: étui (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “étui.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%C3%A9tui. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.