Word.ws English Dictionary

accoutrement

/əˈku.tɚ.mənt/

accoutrement noun: a soldier's equipment, other than weapons and uniform.

Noun

accoutrement (plural accoutrements)

  1. (in plural) A soldier's equipment, other than weapons and uniform.
    • Thus One / Jovial his Mate bespoke; O Friend, observe, / How gay with all th'Accoutrements of War / The Britons come, with Gold well fraught they come1705, John Philips, Blenheim, a Poem
    • Three thousand six hundred of the best fighting men, with complete accoutrement; with cannoneers even, and cannon!1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Give us Arms”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book V (The Third Estate), page 182
  2. (in plural) An article of clothing or equipment, in particular when used as an accessory.
    • To me ſhe's married, not vnto my cloathes: / Could I repaire what ſhe will weare in me, / As I can change theſe poore accoutrements, / 'Twere well for Kate, and better for my ſelfe.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and wild accouterments of a native of the woods, the other exhibited, […]1826, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 3, in The Last of the Mohicans
  3. (broadly) An identifying yet superficial characteristic.
    • By the summer of 1964 they had achieved the bigger house on the better street and the familiar accouterments of a family on its way up: the $30,000 a year, the three children for the Christmas card, the picture window, the family room, […]1968, Joan Didion, “Life Styles in the Golden Land”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem
    • But musical ancestry aside, the influence to which [Justin] Bieber is most beholden is the current trends in pop music, which means Believe is loaded up with EDM accouterments, […]2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 06 Aug 2020
  4. (archaic) The act of accoutering; furnishing.

accoutrement meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

accoutrement in Urdu

ہتھیار سے لیس کرنا

accoutrement in Malayalam

കുതിരക്കോപ്പ്‌, സജ്ജീകരണങ്ങൾ, സന്നാഹം, സാധനസാമഗ്രികൾ, ഉടുപ്പിക്കുക, പടക്കോപ്പണിയിക്കുക

Examples of accoutrement in a sentence

  • Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from moving me to laughter.1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and...
  • A little ship, with oars and food / and little dishes, and all accoutrements / fitting and ready for the departing soul.1932, D. H. Lawrence, The Ship of Death:
  • With all instruments but guitar, bass, drums, and voice written off as effete, as elitist accoutrements of a professionalist cult of technique, it was music best suited to anger and frustration, […]1989, Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009:
  • Partly for this reason, the washing machine–like dishwashers after the mid-1970s–remained associated in commercial imagery with the domestic accoutrements of the affluent middle class.2005, Tony Judt, “The Age of Affluence”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

Synonyms of accoutrement

Forms of accoutrement

pluralaccoutrements
alternative US alternativeaccouterment

Origin of accoutrement

Probably partly from Middle French accoustrement, acoustrement, acoutrement (French accoutrement), from accoustrer, from Old French acostrer (“arrange, sew up”), and partly from accoutre + -ment. First attested in the 1540s.

Questions about accoutrement

What does accoutrement mean?
Accoutrement means a soldier's equipment, other than weapons and uniform.
What is accoutrement in Urdu?
Accoutrement in Urdu is ہتھیار سے لیس کرنا. See Accoutrement meaning in Urdu.
How do you use accoutrement in a sentence?
Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from moving me to laughter.
What part of speech is accoutrement?
Accoutrement is a noun.
How do you pronounce accoutrement?
Accoutrement is pronounced /əˈku.tɚ.mənt/ (US).
What is the plural of accoutrement?
The plural of accoutrement is accoutrements.

Words near accoutrement in the dictionary

  1. accouterments
  2. accouters
  3. accoutre
  4. accoutred
  5. accoutreing
  6. accoutrement
  7. accoutrements
  8. accoutres
  9. accoutring
  10. accowardize
  11. accowardized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: accoutrement (page history and authors); accoutrement (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); accoutrement (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-accoutrement.wav, En-us-accoutrement.ogg.

Cite this entry: “accoutrement.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accoutrement. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.