Other forms: suited, suits, suiting
A suit is a jacket with matching trousers or a matching skirt, cut from the same cloth. The one that comes out for weddings, interviews and funerals, and hangs in a bag at the back of the wardrobe the rest of the year.
In a pack of cards a suit is one of the four families — hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades — and to follow suit is to play the same one, which is also the everyday phrase for doing what someone else has just done. As a verb, suit means to be right for someone: that colour suits you, does Tuesday suit you, and suit yourself when you have given up arguing. A suit is also a case brought to court; the fuller word is lawsuit. And it builds compounds for any one-piece outfit with a job to do: a wetsuit, a spacesuit, a swimsuit, a tracksuit.
1nounsuitA jacket with matching trousers or skirt, worn to work or to formal occasions.~51%
“He wore the same grey suit to every interview that year.”
2nounfourOne of the four sets of cards in a pack.~30%
“You have to play the same suit if you can.”
3verbrightTo be right or convenient for someone; to look good on them.~2%
“Would Thursday suit you better?”
4nouncaseA case brought against someone in a court of law.~15%
“The company settled the suit out of court.”
5nounseniorA senior businessman or executive, treated as interchangeable with the rest. Informal, disapproving.~2%
“The suits upstairs killed the project in a morning.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
suit is an outfit.
Suit belongs to a family of words about following: Italian seguire and Spanish seguir are its cousins, and English sue and segue are relations. That thread runs through every meaning it has. A suit of clothes is pieces that go together, a suit in a pack is cards that run together, and a suit at law is a case you follow through the courts.
Middle English
sute
English, today
suit
From Middle English sute. Cognate with Italian seguire and Spanish seguir. Related to sue and segue.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA