different between plight vs suit

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: pl?t, IPA^(key): /pla?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English plit (“fold, wrinkle, bad situation”), conflation of Middle English pliht, plight (“risky promise, peril”) (from Old English pliht "danger, risk") and Anglo-Norman plit, plyte (“fold, condition”), from Old French pleit (“condition, manner of folding”) (from Vulgar Latin *plictum, from Latin plicitum (“fold”)).

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. A dire or unfortunate situation. [from 14th c.]
   • 2005, Lesley Brown, translating Plato, Sophist, 243c:

     Though we say we are quite clear about it and understand when someone uses the expression, unlike that other expression, maybe we're in the same plight with regard to them both.
2. (now rare) A (neutral) condition or state. [from 14th c.]
3. (obsolete) Good health. [14th–19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:

     All wayes shee sought him to restore to plight, / With herbs, with charms, with counsel, and with teares […].

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English plight (“risk, danger”), from Old English pliht (“peril, risk, danger, damage, plight”), from Proto-West Germanic *plihti (“care, responsibility, duty”). A suffixed form of the root represented by Old English pleoh (“risk, danger, hurt, peril"; also "responsibility”) and pl?on (“to endanger, risk”). Akin to Old English plihtan (“to endanger, compromise”). Cognate with Scots plicht (“responsibility, plight”), Dutch plicht, Low German plicht (“duty”), German Pflicht (“duty”), Danish pligt (“duty”), Yiddish ??????? (flikht). More at pledge.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) Responsibility for ensuing consequences; risk; danger; peril.
2. (now chiefly dialectal) An instance of danger or peril; a dangerous moment or situation.
3. (now chiefly dialectal) Blame; culpability; fault; wrong-doing; sin; crime.
4. (now chiefly dialectal) One's office; duty; charge.
5. (archaic) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.

Derived terms

• plightful
• plightly

Translations

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To expose to risk; to pledge.
2. (transitive) Specifically, to pledge (one's troth etc.) as part of a marriage ceremony.
3. (reflexive) To promise (oneself) to someone, or to do something.
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 226:

     I ask what I have done to deserve it, one daughter hobnobbing with radicals and the other planning to plight herself to a criminal.

Derived terms

• plighter

Etymology 3

From Middle English plyghten, ply?ten, pley?ten, pleiten, pliten, from the noun (see below).

Verb

plight (third-person singular simple present plights, present participle plighting, simple past and past participle plighted)

1. (obsolete) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.

Etymology 4

From Middle English pli?t, plight, plyt, pleit, from Anglo-Norman pleit (“pleat, fold”). More at plait.

Noun

plight (plural plights)

2. (obsolete) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.

Further reading

• Plight in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

English

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 sec?ta), 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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /s(j)u?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /s(j)ut/
• Rhymes: -u?t
• Homophone: soot (in some dialects)

Noun

suit (plural suits)

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.

2. (by extension) A single garment that covers the whole body: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit.
3. (derogatory, slang, metonymically) A person who wears matching jacket and trousers, especially a boss or a supervisor.

4. A full set of armour.
5. (law) The 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.

6. (obsolete): The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.
7. Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.
   • 1725, Alexander Pope, Odyssey (original by Homer)

     Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,
     Till this funereal web my labors end.

8. (obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.
9. The full set of sails required for a ship.
11. (card games) Each of the sets of a pack of cards distinguished by color and/or specific emblems, such as the spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs of traditional Anglo, Hispanic, and French playing cards.
    • 1785, William Cowper, The Task

      To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort
      Her mingled suits and sequences.

12. (obsolete) Regular order; succession.
    • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Vicissitude of Things

    Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again.

13. (archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.
14. (archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

• suite

Translations

See also

References

• suit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

suit (third-person singular simple present suits, present participle suiting, simple past and past participle suited)

1. (transitive) To make proper or suitable; to adapt or fit.
2. (said of clothes, hairstyle or other fashion item, transitive) To be suitable or apt for one's image.

3. (transitive) To be appropriate or apt for.
   • c. 1700, Matthew Prior, epistle to Dr. Sherlock

     Raise her notes to that sublime degree / Which suits song of piety and thee.
4. (most commonly used in the passive form, intransitive) To dress; to clothe.
5. To please; to make content; to fit one's taste.

6. (intransitive) To agree; to be fitted; to correspond (usually followed by to, archaically also followed by with)

   Synonyms: agree, match, answer

Derived terms

• suited and booted
• suit up
• suit yourself
• unsuited

Translations

Anagrams

• ITUs, Situ, TUIs, Tsui, UTIs, iust, situ, tuis, utis

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?i/
• Rhymes: -?i
• Homophone: suis

Verb

suit

1. third-person singular present indicative of suivre

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?su.it/, [?s?u?t?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?su.it/, [?su?it?]

Verb

suit

1. third-person singular present active indicative of su?

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from English suit.

Noun

suit m (plural suits)

1. (Jersey) suit (of clothes)

Synonyms

• fa