boutique

US/buˈtik/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,028 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: boutiques

A boutique is a small shop selling stylish clothes. A designer boutique, browse the boutiques, a boutique on the corner.

The word has spread far beyond clothes as an adjective meaning small and specialised — a boutique hotel, a boutique law firm — where it means expensive as much as small. It is the French for a shop, from a Greek word for a storehouse.

Definitions of boutique

1nounboutiqueA small shop selling stylish clothes.B2+
“She bought a silk dress from a little boutique in the old town.”

boutique is a shop.

Where it comes from

French boutique means a shop, through Provencal from Greek apotheke, a storehouse. Bodega and apothecary are relatives.

Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
French
boutique
English, today
boutique

Borrowed from French boutique. a doublet of apotheke and bodega.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Clothes & Fashion

Practise this word

boutique in the wild

Sex (stylised SEX) was a boutique run by Vivienne Westwood and her then-partner Malcolm McLaren at 430 King's Road, London, between 1974 and 1976.
Sex (boutique)
Some multi-outlet businesses (chain stores) can be referred to as boutiques if they target small, upscale niche markets.
Boutique
As an industry it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket (upper tier), Middle Market (mid-level businesses), and boutique market (specialized businesses).
List of investment banks
The establishment is part of the Library Hotel Collection, a boutique hotel group owned by Henry Kallan.
Hotel Giraffe
The Townsend Hotel is a luxury boutique hotel located in the Metro Detroit city of Birmingham, Michigan.
Townsend Hotel (Birmingham, Michigan)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

boutique hotel

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