Other forms: fitted, fitting, fits, fitter, fittest
If clothes fit, they are the right size and shape for your body — not tight, not hanging off you. You try the jacket on, the shoulders sit where they should, the sleeves end at your wrist: it fits.
Fit is also an adjective. In Britain it means healthy and in good physical shape — fit enough to run for a bus — and in informal British speech it means good-looking. Fit for means good enough for a purpose: fit for work, fit for a king, not fit to drink. As a verb it also means to put something in place properly, which is where a fitted kitchen and they came to fit the new lock come from. And a fit is a sudden attack: an epileptic fit, a fit of laughing, a fit of temper. Past tense splits by country — British English says fitted, American English says fit.
1verbfitTo be the right size and shape for someone or something.~78%
“The shoes fit perfectly, so she bought two pairs.”
2verbputTo put something in place and fix it there.~2%
“An electrician came to fit the new oven.”
3adjectivehealthyHealthy and in good physical condition.~2%
“He is fit enough to cycle forty miles before lunch.”
4adjectivesuitableGood enough or suitable for a particular purpose.~2%
“The water here is not fit to drink.”
5nounsuddenA sudden attack of illness, or a sudden burst of emotion.~16%
“She had a fit of giggles in the middle of the lesson.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Nobody is certain where fit came from. The best guess points to a Middle English fit meaning an adversary of equal power — a match for you — with an early verb sense of marshalling troops, which slid from suiting soldiers to a place into suiting anything at all. There may also be a link to Icelandic fitja, to knit or web together.
Middle English
fit — an adversary of equal power
English, today
fit
Possibly from Middle English fit (“an adversary of equal power”), of unknown further origin. The original sense appears to have been "to marshal or deploy troops", which shifted to "to suit (troops to a certain location" > "suitable", and may be further related to Icelandic fitja (“to web, knit, cast on”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA