Suit or suite?
suit is a noun meaning “A set of clothes to be worn together, now especially a man's matching jacket…”; suite is a noun meaning “A group or train of attendants, servants etc.; a retinue”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) suit is about 3.3 times as common as suite.
What is the difference between suit and suite?
| suit | suite | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun |
| Meaning | 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 garment or set of garments suitable and/or required for a given task or activity: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit, swimsuit To make proper or suitable; to adapt or fit | A group or train of attendants, servants etc.; a retinue A connected series or succession of objects; a number of things used or classed together |
| Example | Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding | a suite of rooms |
| Forms | suits | suites |
| Pronunciation | /sjuːt/ /sɪu̯t/ /sjuʈ/ | /swiːt/ /sjuːʈ/ |
| In writing | 50 times per million words | 15 times per million words |
Sources: suit and suite in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of suit and suite
suit
- 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
Nick hired a navy-blue suit for the wedding
- 2
To make proper or suitable; to adapt or fit
- 3
A garment or set of garments suitable and/or required for a given task or activity: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit, swimsuit
- 4
To be suitable or apt for one's image
The ripped jeans didn't suit her elegant image
- 5
A dress
- 6
To be appropriate or apt for
The nickname "Bullet" suits her, since she is a fast runner
- 7
derogatoryslangA 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
- 8
To dress; to clothe
suite
- 1
A group or train of attendants, servants etc.; a retinue
- 2
A connected series or succession of objects; a number of things used or classed together
a suite of rooms
- 3
A group of connected rooms, usually separable from other rooms by means of access
The Presidential suite is well appointed and allows for good security
- 4
A musical form, popular before the time of the sonata, consisting of a string or series of pieces all in the same key, mostly in various dance rhythms, with sometimes an elaborate prelude
- 5
An excerpt of instrumental music from a larger work that contains other elements besides the music; for example, the Nutcracker Suite is the music (but not the dancing) from the ballet The…
- 6
A group of related computer programs distributed together
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, suit or suite?
suit appears 50 times per million words; suite 15 times per million words.
suit 50 times per million wordssuite 15 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search suit vs suite?
“suit vs suite” is searched about 1,600 times a month on Google and 70 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“suite vs suit”, “suit or suite”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.