suit
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "suit", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "suit" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "suit" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
suit is aEnglishnoun. It 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. Pronounced /sjuːt/. It ranks #2,055 in English word frequency. Often confused with sun and sum.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | suit |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sjuːt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,055 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for suit is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sjuːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,055 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for suit, with forms such as "siut", "ssuit", and "suitt". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sun", "sum", "SUV", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sute, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suite and Old French sieute, siute (modern suite), originally a participle adjective from Vulgar Latin *sequita (for secūta), from Latin sequi (“to follow”), because the component garments "follow each ot… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is suit, spelled S-U-I-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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.
- 2A garment or set of garments suitable and/or required for a given task or activity: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit, swimsuit.
- 3A dress.
- 4A person who wears matching jacket and trousers, especially a boss or a supervisor.
- 5A full set of armour.
- 6The 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.
- 7Petition, request, entreaty.
- 8The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
- 9Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.
- 10The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.
- 11The full set of sails required for a ship.
- 12Each 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.
- 13Regular order; succession.
- 14A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
- 15A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)
Etymology
From Middle English sute, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suite and Old French sieute, siute (modern suite), originally a participle adjective from Vulgar Latin *sequita (for secūta), from Latin sequi (“to follow”), because the component garments "follow each other", i.e. are worn together. See also the doublet suite. Cognate with Italian seguire and Spanish seguir. Related to sue and segue.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: siut,ssuit,suitt,suti,usit
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for suit
Misspelling Variants of "suit"
Frequency rank: #2,055 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: