Word.ws English Dictionary

suit

/sjuːt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Wales/sɪu̯t/

suit noun: 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.

suit: a set of clothes to be worn together, now especially a man's matching jacket and trousers (also...
Image: Fredrik Tersmeden (= FredrikT ), CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

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.
    • 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.1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
    • 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...2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
  2. (broadly) A garment or set of garments suitable and/or required for a given task or activity: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit, swimsuit.
  3. (Pakistan, women's speech) A dress.
  4. (derogatory, metonymically, slang) 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.
    • You had an army / Of suits behind you1996, Ani DiFranco, “Napoleon”, in Dilate
  5. A full set of armour.
  6. 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.
  7. Petition, request, entreaty.
    • Tam[burlaine]. Are you the wittie King of Perſea?
      Myc[etes]. I marrie am I: haue you any ſute to me?
      Tam[burlaine]. I woulde intreate you to ſpeake but three wiſe wordes.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
  8. (obsolete) The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
  9. Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.
    • Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,
      Till this funereal web my labors end.1725–1726, Homer, “(please specify the book or chapter of the Odyssey)”, in [William Broome, Elijah Fenton, Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
  10. (obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.
    • Thenceforth the suitt of earthly conquest shonne.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 60
  11. The full set of sails required for a ship.
  12. Each of the sets of a pack of cards distinguished by colour and/or specific emblems, such as the spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs of traditional Anglo, Hispanic, and French playing cards.
    • To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort
      Her mingled suits and sequences.1785, William Cowper, The Task
Show 3 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (obsolete) Regular order; succession.
    • Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again.
  2. (archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
  3. (archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)
    • "You must wear these to-day, my dear child," said Lord Norbourne, as, entering the dressing-room of his daughter, he laid a suit of pearls on her table1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 212–213

Verb

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.
    • but let your owne Diſcretion be your Tutor: Sute the Action to the Word, the Word to the Action,c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (transitive, 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. (figuratively, transitive) To be appropriate or apt for.
    • The nickname "Bullet" suits her, since she is a fast runner.
    • Ill suits his cloth the praise of railing well.1700, [John] Dryden, “Cymon and Iphigenia, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  4. (intransitive, most commonly used in the passive form) To dress; to clothe.
    • So went he suited to his watery tomb.c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  5. (intransitive, transitive) To please; to make content; to fit someone's (or one's own) taste.
    • will build to suit [on for-sale signs marking vacant lots]
    • He is well suited with his place.
  6. (intransitive) To agree; to be fitted; to correspond (usually followed by to, archaically also followed by with).
    • The place itself was suiting to his care.1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
    • Give me not an office / That suits with me so ill.1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 34
    Synonyms:
    agree, match, answer

Proper noun capitalized: Suit

Suit (plural Suits)

  1. A surname.

suit meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

suit in Hindi

set of clothes
सूट sūṭ

suit in Tamil

set of clothes
கோட் சூட் kōṭ cūṭ

suit in Urdu

set of clothes
سُوٹ sūṭ

suit in Bengali

set of clothes
স্যুট śuṭ
More languagesFewer languages
suit in Telugu
సూటు sūṭu
suit in Malayalam
ഉതകുക utakuka
suit in Kannada
ಸೇರು sēru
suit in Punjabi
ਸੂਟ sūṭ, رنگ raṉg, ਰੰਗ raṅg
suit in Odia
ରଙ୍ଗ raṅga
suit in Assamese
চাজ saz
suit in Nepali
रङ raṅ, सुहाउनु suhāunu
suit in Pashto
سوټ suṭ
suit in Tagalog
terno
suit in Arabic
بَذْلَة baḏla, بَدْلَة badla, بِزَّة bizza, حُلَّة ḥulla
suit in Malay
sut
suit in Indonesian
setelan
suit in Thai
สูท sùut, หน้าไพ่, หน้า nâa
suit in Vietnamese
âu phục, quần áo tây, com lê, hoa
suit in Myanmar
ဝတ်စုံ watcum

Examples of suit in a sentence

  • Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding.
  • My new job suits me, as I work fewer hours and don't have to commute so much.
  • When's it suit you for me to call?
  • Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers.2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
  • Two smartly dressed suits walked up to the doctor.2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 29:
  • Suits didn't wear suits any more—they wore Tibetan prayer beads coiled around their wrists.2020, Emily Segal, Mercury Retrograde, New York: Deluge Books, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with suit

Synonyms of suit

All synonyms of suit

Forms of suit

Noun
pluralsuits
Verb
third-person singular presentsuits
present participlesuiting
past participlesuited
pastsuited
Proper noun
pluralSuits

Past tense of suit: suited

Plural of suit: suits

Origin of suit

Inherited from Middle English sute, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suite, from metathesis of earlier Old French siute, from Vulgar Latin *sequita, from *sequere, from sequor, sequi, from Proto-Italic *sekʷōr, from Proto-Indo-European *sékʷetor, from *sekʷ-. Doublet of suite. Cognate with Italian seguire and Spanish seguir. Related to sue and segue.

Words formed from suit

Phrases with suit

93 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with suit

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about suit

What does suit mean?
Suit means 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.
What is suit in Hindi?
Suit in Hindi is सूट (sūṭ). See Suit meaning in Hindi.
How do you use suit in a sentence?
Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding.
What part of speech is suit?
Suit can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce suit?
Suit is pronounced /sjuːt/.
What is the plural of suit?
The plural of suit is suits.

Words near suit in the dictionary

  1. Suisun
  2. Suisun City
  3. Suisune
  4. Suisunes
  5. Suisuns
  6. suit
  7. suit and service
  8. suit and tie
  9. suit broker
  10. suit brokers
  11. suit costs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: suit (page history and authors); Suit (page history and authors); ഉതകുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಸೇರು (Kannada) (page history and authors); رنگ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ରଙ୍ଗ (Odia) (page history and authors); रङ (Nepali) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-suit-with-yod.ogg, en-us-suit.ogg.

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